Users Meeting

The annual NSUF Users Meeting offers researchers workshops, tours, discussions and classes. The focus is on providing an understanding of key nuclear technology gaps, capabilities required for addressing those gaps, recent or emerging advances and techniques for conducting reactor experiments and post-irradiation examination.

Users Meeting is not just a way to learn more about the NSUF, its capabilities and ongoing research; it is also a great opportunity to meet other students, scientists and engineers who are interested in responding to NSUF’s calls for proposals. Users Meeting supports NSUF as a model for the laboratory of the future, where collaborative research and shared resources among universities and national laboratories will help prepare a new generation of nuclear energy professionals.

The week’s events are free of charge for students, faculty and post docs as well as researchers from industry and national laboratories who are interested in materials, fuels, post-irradiation examination and reactor-based technology development. In the seven years since its inception, the NSUF Users Meeting has hosted 680 participants from 30 countries and 38 U.S. universities.

What to expect at Users Meeting

Users Meeting kicks off with an introductory workshop to the NSUF, which includes a description of current and upcoming research capabilities offered by INL and its university partners, a briefing on the solicitation process and a welcome from DOE.

Each year, Users Week offers a number of workshops and courses for students to participate in. These may vary from year to year, but courses generally focus on a variety of topic-specific areas, such as in-reactor instrumentation, fuels and materials, or how to conduct radiation experiments.

Participants are always offered an opportunity to tour the Advanced Test Reactor as well as INL’s Material and Fuel Complex, where many post-irradiation examination facilities are housed.