This sizeable, long-term investment will support the consortium at $5 million per year for five years. The grant is in response to a funding opportunity announcement issued in May 2013. The CNEC consortium proposal won over 22 other proposals.

Dr. Abdellah Ahmidouch, chair of the department of physics at North Carolina A&T, nuclear physics professor is the NC A&T project principal investigator. He stated: “The proposal is of research nature and includes an educational component in the field of nuclear science and nuclear non-proliferation. It will offer a great opportunity for our students to work with world-class researchers and introduce them to career opportunities at national labs. This grant will greatly enhance the Department’s research and educational capabilities in the field nuclear science.”

This grant will provide the U.S. government with cutting edge research and development to identify and address multi-disciplinary and cross-functional technology and research needs that are critical to detecting foreign nuclear weapon proliferation activities. Specifically, the research projects pursued by the consortium will include technologies to enhance simulation capabilities, algorithms, and modeling; new test and evaluation models for detection sensors; new remote sensing capabilities; and applications of data analytics and data fusion to better characterize and detect special nuclear materials.

In addition to North Carolina A&T, the consortium includes the University of Michigan, Purdue, the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Kansas State, Georgia Tech as well as three national laboratories, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Pacific Northwest.