Volume 5, Number 1
March 2007

INMM 48th Annual Meeting
More than 40 Sessions, Awards, Fun Run, Golf Outing Among Meeting Highlights

By Charles Pietri Chair, INMM Technical Program Committee

I began writing this report in January when the temperature was about 8º F but thinking of how wonderful the weather in Tucson, Arizona would be. Well, we all will have an opportunity to enjoy that weather, not in the winter but in the southwest summer this July when the INMM Annual Meeting convenes with hundreds of interesting and vital papers being presented.

We hope that, with your participation, this year’s meeting will be as successful as the 2006 gathering—a record-breaker by any standard in attendance, presentations and content. As you must already know, the 48th Annual Meeting will be held at the JW Marriott Starr Pass Hotel and Resort, Tucson, Arizona, on July 8-12, 2007.

Annual Meeting highlights include:

• More than 40 exciting technical sessions to choose from including some outstanding special sessions:
  
• Current Safeguards Experience at Reprocessing Facilities --Promising Areas for Improvements. Research programs across the world continue to explore current and new possible reprocessing schemes that would service an expanded nuclear fuel cycle. The INMM will hold a special session on reprocessing. We solicited papers on current domestic and international safeguards experience at reprocessing facilities that may have identified promising new areas to improve the state of the art in safeguards at these complex facilities. We encouraged papers across a broad range of areas including: measurements, surveillance, containment, process control, data collection, data analysis, and other promising areas.
  
  
• Novel Approaches and Technologies for Safeguarding Centrifuge Enrichment Plants. This expansion in terms of number and size of plants will place an additional burden on the IAEA to effectively implement the current safeguards approach. Dramatic improvements have been made in measurement and process control instrumentation that potentially could be applied to improve the efficiency and strengthen the effectiveness of safeguards approaches on these facilities. This session will consider technical developments that could impact the evolving international nuclear safeguards environment.
  
  
• The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). Perspectives from government and industry; nuclear technology for new nuclear power states; global expansion of nuclear power in the developing areas of the world—politics, processes and facilitating expansion; IAEA safeguards policies and procedures; andIAEA safeguards technology for at spent fuel recycle facilities.
  
  
• Nuclear Materials Management—Current Policies and Practices. This area of interest is the work that has been performed by U.S. Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration and some commercial facilities around DOE Order 5660.1B Nuclear Materials Management and other related sectors.

• Student Orientation and Initiative Meeting—mentorship opportunities available
  
  
• Some creative papers by students who will become the leaders of tomorrow—you will see it here first!
  
  
• Our Awards Banquet: we’re going to try to top the musical event we had in Nashville last year!
  
• Annual Golf Outing and 3K Fun Run
  
  
• Another great Posters and Demonstrations session
  
  
• And more…

Details are available on the INMM Web site—www.inmm.org/meetings. Find the preliminary program, hotel and travel information, and much more.

Register before June 8 and save $50 on the registration fee! If you are one of the lucky speakers this year, remember that your final paper is due no later than June 8. Awards are available for all those speakers submitting their paper on time. (Write that paper now! And get your management, sponsor and classification approvals early.)

Students, those of you who plan to present a paper will be eligible for the J. D. Williams Student Paper Award only if your final written paper is submitted on time—don’t miss out on this opportunity.

Hotel Reservations—If you are so unfortunate to have to cancel your plans for attending the Annual Meeting, be sure to cancel your hotel reservations also so other attendees on the hotel waiting list can be placed.

A final reminder—If you must cancel your presentation for any reason, change speakers, modify abstract or any other meeting detail, let us know as soon as possible but at least before the Final Program goes to press on May 24. Then you won’t be embarrassed by having it publicly noted in the program that you withdrew your paper—and your colleagues will appreciate your consideration.

We hope to see you all soon in Tucson.