Currently, the National Laboratories lose nuclear scientists significantly faster than they can recruit top replacements. The number of university nuclear chemistry programs has decreased significantly over the past decade and as a result fewer PhDs are being awarded in nuclear chemistry and radiochemistry. Frank Kinard worked tirelessly to reverse this trend and we owe him a great debt. An enthusiastic educator who enjoyed teaching students at the College of Charleston SC, Dr. Kinard also successfully directed the ACS Nuclear and Radiochemistry Undergraduate Summer School held during the summer at San Jose State University for over 15 years.Additional efforts to help increase the number of young scientists introduced to the field of radiochemistry and nuclear forensics are underway at the Seaborg Institute at LLNL. Several programs are designed to give graduate students an opportunity to come to LLNL either in the summer or for the full year for a hands-on research experience. Students conduct research with a staff scientist, attend weekly lectures, interact with other students, and present their work as a poster at the end of the program. Our graduate fellowship program is designed to provide an opportunity for students to carry out more in-depth research in nuclear chemistry, while getting their PhD. Each year the Frank Kinard and the undergraduate students from San Jose State's radiochemistry summer program came to LLNL to meet the current graduate and postdoctoral students and learn about the research our students were doing and deciding if that is something they wanted to do next.As Dr. Kinard knew, the challenge of attracting the next generation of top students into nuclear science and reversing the declining trend in PhD's awarded is to develop and sustain successful undergraduate programs such as the one Dr. Kinard directed at San Jose State University.Prepared by LLNL under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.

Training the next generation of radiochemists: Education efforts at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

248th National Meeting (2014)

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