UNM Professor Bob Busch recently received the national award for distinguished service from the American Nuclear Society's Nuclear Criticality Safety Division for his service in the field.
"Any time you have a large quantity of fissile material you have the opportunity for an accident," Busch said of the importance of nuclear safety. "There are so many areas where nuclear engineering permeates our daily lives. As long as we are generating electricity through using nuclear power or we have a weapons program that is involved in the handling of fissile material, a criticality safety engineer is needed to make sure it is done safely."
Busch said he received the award in recognition of three areas: UNM's short course in nuclear criticality safety, his service to the division and his contribution to education in the field.
"We have offered a summer five-day course for the industry of nuclear criticality safety that has become kind of an educational requirement for almost anybody going to work in the field," Busch said. "It has evolved into an excellent overview of the concepts of criticality safety."
Busch said what separates UNM's short course from any others that are offered elsewhere is the access it gives students to industry professionals.
"I bring in an additional 14 or 15 faculty members besides myself from all over the country," Busch said. "Course size is usually about 30 students so that leaves a student-teacher ratio of about two to one."
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Busch said each faculty member gives at least one lecture and that students then talk about the material that has been presented.
"The students struggle with some of the same problems that they will see in their work," he said. "The faculty helps them, advises them and critiques."
Busch said due to the success of the program that they have been contacted by several national laboratories and have given similar types of courses in Oakridge, Colo.; Rocky Flats, Colo.; Hanford, Idaho; and England at British Nuclear Fuels.
"This course has had an impact on the international community of criticality safety by providing concepts on how to provide the safety training to people in the industry," Busch said.
Busch was also recognized for his continuing service to the Nuclear Criticality Safety Division. He was chairman of the executive committee, technical chair and assistant technical chairman for a variety of conferences on nuclear criticality safety.
"I was just doing the required work that has to be done if any volunteer organization is going to survive," he said.
