DOE/ACS Nuclear Chemistry Summer School – Broadening Access to Nuclear Science for the Past 38 Years

The Nuclear Chemistry Summer School (NCSS) is an intensive, six-week program designed to introduce advanced undergraduate students to the fundamentals of nuclear and radiochemistry through in-class lectures and hands-on laboratory experience. The program, funded by the US DOE since 1984, has been an important component in broadening access to nuclear science for students across the United States. To date, 862 students have successfully completed the summer school with many continuing on in nuclear science and pursuing graduate degrees. The program is currently hosted at Brookhaven National Laboratory (the East Coast site) and San José State University (the West Coast site), each of which accommodates 12 students per year. The NCSS consists of an undergraduate course with lectures on nuclear & radiochemistry, nuclear medicine, nuclear forensics, and related fields; laboratory experiments designed to introduce students to state-of-the-art instrumentation and techniques used in basic and applied nuclear science; a wide-ranging guest lecture series; and field trips to local nuclear science research institutions such as universities, medical facilities, and national laboratories. During the summers of 2020 and 2021, the NCSS programs at BNL and SJSU were combined and conducted virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the NCSS returns to in-person instruction in 2022 at both sites, the program is working to incorporate lessons learned from the previous two years of remote learning. This talk will focus on efforts to continually improve the NCSS, the consequences of the two years of remote instruction, and how important this program is to inspiring the next generation of nuclear scientists.