NE in the News

March 24, 2009

Gohar, Roglans-Ribas honored for nonproliferation work

 

Yousry Gohar and Jordi Roglans-Ribas of Argonne’s Nuclear Engineering Division recently received a Secretary of Energy Achievement Award from Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

This honor is bestowed on a group or team of DOE employees or contractors who together accomplished significant achievements on behalf of the department. The groups should demonstrate cooperation and teamwork in attaining their goals.

Gohar and Roglans-Ribas received the award for their work on the Bratislava Security Initiative Team under the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) Russian Research Reactor Fuel Return (RRRFR) Program and the GTRI-Reactor Conversion Program, respectively. The honor represents the highest internal non-monetary recognition that Department of Energy employees and contractors can receive for providing exceptional service to the department and the American people. The Secretary of Energy presented the awards at a special ceremony in Washington, D.C.

The presidential-level Bratislava Security Initiative — signed by President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2005 — set forth a commitment and process to secure large amounts of nuclear weapons usable materials in Russia and around the world. The RRRFR objective is to remove or dispose of Russian-origin nuclear material from research reactors including the conversion of subcritical assemblies with high enriched uranium to low enriched uranium. In the last six years, the program has secured and safely transported nearly 1,700 pounds of HEU fuel from countries including the Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria.

The GTRI-Reactor Conversion Program supports the conversion of domestic and international civilian research reactors and isotope production facilities from high enriched uranium to low enriched uranium fuel and targets. Recent reactor conversion projects under the Bratislava Security Initiative include the IRT-1 reactor and critical assembly in Libya, the VR-1 reactor in the Czech Republic and the WWR-SM reactor in Uzbekistan. These programs result in permanent threat reduction by minimizing and, to the extent possible, eliminating use of high enriched uranium in civilian applications.

Dr. Yousry Gohar (left), receiving his award trophy from Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. Not pictured, Jordi Roglans-Ribas.

NE congratulates Dr. Gohar and Dr. Roglans-Ribas for this distinguished achievement.

About Dr. Gohar and Dr. Roglans-Ribas

Dr. Yousry Gohar is a senior nuclear engineer and section manager in the Nuclear Engineering Division of Argonne National Laboratory. His experience includes the development and design of fusion and fission reactor components, design and analysis of nuclear systems, nuclear technology development, and computer code development. He has coordinated design activities and nuclear technology developments in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Russia...
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Dr. Jordi Roglans-Ribas is the Argonne Program Director for the NNSA’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) Reactor Conversion program. The program’s mission is to minimize, and to the extent possible eliminate, the use of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) in civil applications by converting research and test reactors to the use of low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel and targets for the production of medical isotopes...
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