Consortium for Enabling Technologies and Innovation

Showcased Accomplishments at UPR 2025

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NNSA’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development (DNN R&D) held its annual University Program Review (UPR) meeting from June 3 – June 5, 2025 at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Over 250 participants representing university partners, national laboratories, and the government joined together at this event. The ETI/ETI2.0 team showcased the accomplishments of the DNN R&D-funded research projects to the broader nuclear security and nonproliferation community.  

UPR is an unclassified venue for sponsors to review the accomplishments of grantees; stakeholders within the community to engage sponsored researchers; a forum to stimulate collaboration, technology transfer, and integration; and a venue where students and early career scientists can interact with their peers in a rigorous, yet collegial, environment.

All ETI/ETI2.0 presentations are very impressive, including 15 oral talks and 25 posters! This year’s UPR Student Award winners for the ETI/ETI2.0 team are:

  • Best Poster Presentation: Morgan Fandrey (Dr. Alan Sellinger group, Colorado School of Mines)
  • Best Oral Presentation: Mackenzie Duce (Dr. Anna Erickson group, Georgia Tech)
  • Best National Lab Project: Patrick Snarr (Dr. Derek Haas group, The University of Texas at Austin)

Great efforts and contributions from the ETI/ETI2.0 members to make the UPR 2025 successful!

ETI Student Received IEEE Best Paper Award 

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Andrew Fishberg (left)

Andrew Fishberg, an ETI student from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, received the IEEE Transactions on Robotics King-Sun Fu Memorial Best Paper Award for his paper Certifiably Correct Range-Aided SLAM (CORA). This is a major honor in the robotics community — effectively a “best paper of the year” award from one of the field’s top journals. After receiving the award, Andrew highlighted that “I’m deeply appreciative of ETI and all the learning opportunities it has provided. Participating in the consortium has sparked a genuine interest in nuclear non-proliferation — something I never would have anticipated before joining. ETI’s generous support made my contributions to this work possible, and I want to thank everyone again!”

ETI Summer School on Theatre Screen Now!

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The week-long ETI Annual Summer School was successfully held in-person by the Consortium for Enabling Technologies and Innovation (ETI) at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TN, on August 11 – 16, 2024. This summer school was filmed, and has been recently edited into a Hollywood-style movie. Welcome to watch this ETI Summer School movie at your own theatre now!

In this summer school, cross-cutting technologies across core disciplines for nuclear nonproliferation were explored, including data science and nuclear nonproliferation, instrumentation in fuel cycle monitoring, material selection  and sensor manufacturing, facility surveillance and predictive analytics. In addition to invited lectures and panel discussion by research scientists, in-person hands-on experiments, lab demonstrations and tours were also conducted, including travel to ORNL to meet phenomenal scientists and tour comprehensive & advanced labs.

2025 ETI Workshop Successfully Concluded!

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ETI consortium successfully hosted its final Annual Workshop on February 04, 2025, at the Historic Academy of Medicine (875 W Peachtree St NW, Atlanta, GA 30309), Georgia Institute of Technology. About 70 participants representing university partners, national laboratories, and the government joined together to review and strengthen the research collaborations between the labs and the universities. The workshop also enhanced the collaborative research and education environment to support cross-cutting technologies across three thrust areas for nuclear nonproliferation!

Dr. Biegalski Receives Top International Award in Nuclear Radiochemistry

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Dr. Steven Biegalski, the ETI Thrust Area Lead of TA2, is receiving the 2025 George Hevesy Medal — the highest international award for career achievements in applied nuclear and radiochemistry.

The medal honors Biegalski’s research and contributions to nuclear analytical chemistry, specifically for “developing comprehensive methods for analyzing radioxenon signatures and creating isotopically pure radioxenon samples, supporting global nuclear monitoring efforts and nuclear accident response.” The medal is sponsored by the Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry with honorees selected by a dedicated panel of scholars overseen by the Board of the Hevesy Award. The award is named after György Hevesy, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1943 for his work on the use of radionuclides as tracers in the study of chemical processes. Dr. Biegalski will receive the Hevesy Medal in March.