The Department of Energy has awarded a grant of up to $3 million to start a five-year radiochemistry training program for graduate students at Washington State University. The campus in Pullman is about 125 miles east of the Hanford Site. The grant comes from DOE offices of Environmental Management and Nuclear Energy funds, with both offices needing trained and educated workers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields with radiochemistry expertise.
WSU was picked for the radiochemistry traineeship program following a rigorous, competitive process, according to a DOE announcement. The university will work with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory near Hanford and the Idaho and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories. “(DOE) will need radiochemistry expertise for decades to come to support the nation’s energy and security interests,” the department said.