Principal Investigator R Kemp
Co-investigators Richard Lanza , Peter Fisher , Charles Forsberg , Michael Golay , Richard Lester
Project Website http://lnsp.mit.edu/
The Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy (LNSP) is working to resolve the stability, safety, and security challenges that arise from nuclear technology. We are interested in the problems of nuclear-weapons proliferation, nuclear deterrence theory and stability, verification systems to enable nuclear disarmament, and the safe stewardship of nuclear power and the fuel cycle. The Laboratory acts as a nexus for engineers, physicists, historians, political and policy scholars to join forces in collaborative research. The Laboratory also supports students pursuing graduate studies in Nuclear Science and Engineering with research interests related to the Laboratory’s mission.
The laboratory grew out of a strategic plan to broaden the focus of nuclear engineering at MIT. In 2010, the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering approved a strategic plan that would reorganize the Department’s educational programs around a Science-Systems-Society triad. LNSP was created as part of that effort, and out of the growing interest of students to turn towards research with more immediate societally focused benefits.
LNSP brings together faculty from across the institute into an organizational structure that houses and supports research in nuclear security. The Laboratory supports students who are interested in nuclear security by providing opportunities to join research projects, by supporting independent student initiatives, through the LNSP security seminar series, and by providing funding for tuition, living, and research costs for graduate students completing theses related to nuclear security.
LNSP carries out its research activities in cooperation with other educational and research units at MIT, including the Departments of Physics and Political Science; the MIT Security Studies Program; the MIT Program on Science, Technology, and Society; and the MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science. LNSP collaborates with the Nuclear Futures Lab and Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University, and with the Managing the Atom Program at Harvard University. The Laboratory also serves as a bridge to the policy world through the faculty interactions with policymakers and industry practitioners.
CURRENT PROJECTS INCLUDE:
(*) NRF Verification of Nuclear Warheads for Dismantlement How can we verify that a warhead is authentic without learning anything about it?
(*) Data Fusion and Proliferation Analytics How do you find security in a world where clandestine nuclear-weapon programs can easily escape national technical means?
(*) Open-Source Analyses North Korea’s Strategic Nuclear Programs What can we learn about the strategic nuclear programs of the most closed and proliferation-prone nation on Earth?
(*) Proliferation Challenges of Laser Enrichment Will the next generation uranium-enrichment technology revolutionize the ability of countries, or even sub-state actors, to build nuclear weapons?
(*) Signatures Identification for the Detection of Clandestine Enrichment Activities Are there new ways to find secret nuclear programs of the type that have systematically escaped detection for sixty years?
(*) (*) De-Alerting Study Group What can we do to reduce the chances that nuclear weapons are used accidentally or without due consideration?
(*) Project on Nuclear Fuel Security Without Proliferation In a climate-constrained world turning increasingly towards nuclear power, how do we ensure the supply of nuclear fuels without enabling nuclear proliferation?