The University of Tennessee, Knoxville is part of a consortium led by the University of California, Berkeley that was awarded a five-year, $25 million grant by the US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration in December 2025.
This is the fourth time the federal government has awarded such a grant to the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium (NSSC) for research and development in nuclear science, engineering, and security. The NSSC includes six national laboratories and nine universities, including UT.
Work on the new grant began in July 2026. MSE Professor Mariya Zhuravleva is the principal investigator (PI) of UT’s efforts under the consortium; joint MSE-Department of Nuclear Engineering (NE) Research Professor Chuck Melcher and NE Assistant Professor Sandra Bogetic are co-PIs.
“Participation in the NSSC consortium connects us with leading experts in diverse fields of nuclear non-proliferation,” Zhuravleva said. “It helps expand the impact of (our) scintillation (radiation detection) materials research.”
In fact, one of UT’s focus areas under the grant is developing and characterizing new scintillators. This work relies on the facilities and experts in UT’s Scintillation Materials Research Center (SMRC), which Melcher directs.
“The SMRC has built an international reputation (for) development of scintillation materials due to a combination of its scientific impact, rare experimental capabilities for crystal growth and characterization, and hands-on student training,” said Zhuravleva. “It is not just a strong university lab, but a globally recognized center for scintillator research.”
Using the extensive laboratory infrastructure of the SMRC, the UT research team will pursue fundamental materials discovery and identify the best ways to scale up the production of high-performance scintillators that are expected to eventually replace the current state of the art.
“Very few universities in the United States still maintain this level of crystal growth infrastructure and hands-on training,” Zhuravleva said. “(Our) expertise in growth methods such as Czochralski, Bridgman, and micro-pulling-down, along with advanced scintillator characterization, (set UT apart).”
UT’s scintillation team will also collaborate with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to identify new processing methods that can be used to optimize scintillators.
“For more than five years, MSE and NE will continue to collaborate (with the NSSC) to advance materials for radiation detection and nuclear energy systems,” Melcher said. “Innovation in detector materials is at the core of developing novel detector capabilities.”
In addition to fundamental research and new scintillator development, the NSSC grant supports the SMRC’s continuing efforts to expand knowledge of scintillator materials and methods beyond Rocky Top.
UT, ORNL, and the Air Force Institute of Technology jointly held the first Scintillator Summer School in the summer of 2025; thanks to the DOE’s ongoing support, the program will be held again this August.
“The Scintillator Summer School (brings) graduate students from other US universities to UT and ORNL for hands-on training in synthesis and scintillation characterization, exposure to cutting-edge applications, and networking with experts,” Zhuravleva said.