Consortium for Enabling Technologies and Innovation 2

Dr. Erickson on CBS News 24/7 — Explains the Importance of Centrifuges to Iranian Efforts to Build Nuclear Weapons

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The latest U.S. strikes in Iran hit the infrastructure that supports advanced uranium enrichment: centrifuge components, vacuum systems, and critical power supplies. Even striking peripheral infrastructure, like vacuum pumps or cold traps, can cripple enrichment throughput without necessarily destroying centrifuges.

CBS News video — Dr. Erickson explains the uranium enrichment process.

Professor Anna Erickson, the Director of ETI Consortium 2.0, was recently invited to CBS News 24/7 to explain how centrifuge technology shapes nuclear weapons capability and intentions, how designs have evolved from the IR-1 to the IR-9, and why disrupting enrichment infrastructure can matter without dismantling an entire nuclear program. Watch this CBS News video here. Her article, “Why the US bombed a bunch of metal tubes − a nuclear engineer explains the importance of centrifuges to Iranian efforts to build nuclear weapons,” was published in The Conversation earlier this month. More details are available here.

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 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.

ETI 2.0 Consortium Successfully Kicked off!

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The ETI 2.0 consortium successfully hosted its Kick-off Meeting on February 5 – 6, 2025, at the Historic Academy of Medicine (875 W Peachtree St NW, Atlanta, GA 30309), Georgia Institute of Technology. About 100 participants representing university partners, national laboratories, and the government joined together to build and explore the research collaborations between the labs and the universities to support the NNSA DNN R&D. The kick-off meeting also created and cultivated a research and education environment to support cross-cutting technologies across three thrust areas for nuclear nonproliferation, and train & educate the next-generation of researchers. Check here for more details.

Dr. Biegalski Receives Top International Award in Nuclear Radiochemistry

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Dr. Steven Biegalski at Georgia Tech, the Lead of ETI2.0 Cross-cutting Area 2, 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.