Invited Speakers

We’re excited to announce that the Metropolitan Police will join us again this year for another insightful and engaging talk.

Stay tuned for updates on our invited speakers and the full event programme—more details coming soon!

Gary Eppich

Gary Eppich is the Unit Head for nuclear forensics and radiological crime scene management in the Division of Nuclear Security at the International Atomic Energy Agency. A geochemist with experience in nuclear forensics and safeguards, he has over 12 years of experience in supporting global efforts to combat nuclear smuggling, trafficking, and the misuse of nuclear and radioactive material.

Abstract

The IAEA’s Activities of Member State Support in Nuclear Forensics.

Nuclear forensics is the examination of nuclear or other radioactive material, or of evidence that is contaminated with radionuclides, in the context of legal proceedings under international or national law related to nuclear security. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Division of Nuclear Security assists States in the development of technical and associated capabilities in nuclear forensics. Here we describe the IAEA’s programme of State support in nuclear forensics, describing the training courses and workshops, publications, coordinated research projects, and other mechanism by which the IAEA assists States in building capacity. We highlight the impact of the IAEA’s programme in assisting States in the development of technical and human resources necessary to sustain a nuclear forensics capability commensurate with their specific needs and requirements. We also describe future developments in the programme to meet the ever-evolving needs of States as peaceful uses of nuclear and radiological material become more widespread.

Shaun Hipgrave

Shaun Hipgrave is Director Protect and Prepare, two of the Ps from the UK Counter Terrorism Strategy CONTEST. He has been serving the public either in the Amry, Police or Civil Service for over 30 year and has spent 13 years in the private sector.

He was the former Head of the Joint Security and Resilience Centre (JSARC) in the Homeland Security Group of the Home Office, which runs the Home Office Security and Policing show every year and is the main route for Home Office engagement with the security industry sector and the prosperity agenda.

Shaun has been working in the security sector for over 25 years. After serving in the British Army, he joined Northumbria Police where he served for 13 years, mainly in investigation and intelligence roles. In 2003 he joined the private sector combinating being the Managing Director of FTS, a services and software forensic telecoms company focused in the criminal justice space and spending 5 years with IBM.

In Shaun’s current role he is responsible for the protection for people and places from National Security threats, the SRO of Martyn’s Law, The Senior Sponsor of the Security Industry Authority, and has been leading the work to support he victims of terrorism since 2019.

UK Approach to Domestic Radiological and Nuclear Security

The UK's security landscape is becoming increasingly complex, shaped by evolving threats, emerging technologies and geopolitical instability.

Within the Home Office, the Radiological and Nuclear (RN) Unit is responsible for strengthening the UK's end-to-end domestic RN security system. Through a defence in depth approach, the RN Unit delivers and coordinates capabilities across multiple layers including threat reduction and deterrence, detection, specialist response and preparedness and resilience planning. This is underpinned across the board by specialist science and technology.

A critical component of this system is Nuclear Forensics. “Nuclear Forensics” within the Home Office is focused on delivering specialist scientific capabilities that support investigative authorities and intelligence agencies to establish the malicious use of RN materials, or intent to do so, and attribute materials linking them to sources, individuals, places and events. A key part of this is leveraging the technical knowledge and experience that exists across the UK’s civil and defence nuclear sectors.

Shaun Hipgrave, Director for National Security Protect and Prepare, will outline the UK's approach to domestic radiological and nuclear security, highlighting developments since his previous NuFor presentation and discussing the continued importance of Nuclear Forensics in strengthening the UK's ability to prevent, investigate and respond to RN threats.

Naomi Marks

Naomi Marks is the Associate Program Leader for Fundamental Science within the Nuclear Counter Terrorism and Counter Proliferation Portfolio within N Program and is responsible for foundational research in support of Materials Science. In addition to the Fundamental Science portfolio, Marks is also deeply engaged in Pre-Detonation Technical Nuclear Forensics both operationally and in the R&D activities. Marks has supported nuclear materials provenance assessment, and several international nuclear forensics engagements for the Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence Program. Marks is currently serving as the Science Integration Lead for the Venture on Intentional Forensics. In support of the National Nuclear Materials Archive, Marks has led the development of Arcana, the National Nuclear Materials Archive Database. She currently serves as one of the scientific co-chairs for the International Technical Working Group for Nuclear Forensics.

Marks is currently supporting the Advanced and Small Modular Reactors Initiative, helping to develop LLNL’s research and development portfolio focused on non-proliferation, forensics, safeguards, and materials attractiveness. Prior to entering graduate school, Naomi worked variously as a geologist, environmental remediation specialist, summer camp counselor, organic farmer, chauffeur, hospital bed installer, grower of e. coli, and a retail salesperson specializing in woolen socks.

Advancing Nuclear Security Through the Development of Nuclear Forensic Signatures for Future Fuels

As nuclear energy systems evolve beyond conventional light-water reactor designs, the need for rapid, reliable characterization of advanced fuel forms has become increasingly important for nuclear forensics and global security applications. Technical nuclear forensics has historically centered on pressurized water reactor fuels, which are comparatively well characterized and widely understood. In contrast, advanced and small modular reactors introduce fuel types such as high-assay low-enriched uranium, molten salts, and TRISO-based fuels that exhibit distinct physical and chemical properties, along with forensic signatures that are not yet fully established. These emerging materials present new analytical challenges because their composition, microstructure, and processing histories may differ substantially from those of traditional reactor fuels.

This work seeks to identify the critical forensic signatures of novel advanced reactor fuel forms through a coordinated program of material acquisition, fabrication, and analysis using samples with well-documented provenance. To address the complexity of these fuels, we are applying and refining a suite of non-destructive and destructive techniques, including x-ray computed tomography, secondary ion mass spectrometry, optical microscopy, resonance ultrasound spectroscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. Together, these methods provide complementary insight into the morphology, chemistry, isotopic composition, and mechanical behavior of TRISO particles, TRISO fuel elements, and molten salt systems. The resulting data will help define nuclear forensics signatures associated with future fuels including matrix anisotropy, particle packing density, salt speciation, chemical states, impurity distributions, and isotopic variability.

Lee Packer

Packer is an internationally recognised nuclear science expert and UKAEA Fellow. He possesses more than 25 years of research and industrial experience. He leads R&D in nuclear technology, specialising in neutronics, nuclear forensics, radiation detection, and metrology. He has served as an IAEA consultant, where he has analysed the proliferation considerations of emerging nuclear technologies such as nuclear fusion or intense accelerator-based neutron sources. Packer previously led the Applied Radiation Technology group at UKAEA for over a decade and, further back, headed a Radiometrics Group at AWE. As an Honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham, he lectures and conducts research on nuclear fusion-related technology. He is also an IOP Fellow with more than 100 scientific publications and an h-index of 30.

Verifying the absence of undeclared nuclear material: neutronic methods and nuclear forensic signatures towards evaluating the misuse of fusion technology

Fusion could offer secure, low-carbon baseload power with a fundamentally lower proliferation risk profile than conventional fission. However, deuterium-tritium systems generate high-fluence neutron environments, providing a theoretical capacity to breed special fissionable material (SFM) if undeclared fertile material is introduced into the neutron flux.

Maintaining international confidence regarding the absence of undeclared material and activities, and the non-diversion of declared nuclear material, is underpinned by the IAEA safeguards system established under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The NPT requires non-nuclear-weapon states to conclude a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement. Safeguards also apply to selected facilities in the five nuclear-weapon states through Voluntary Offer Agreements and to specific items within three non-NPT states. Additionally, most states have brought into force an Additional Protocol to their respective safeguards agreements, which enhances the measures for verifying compliance across the state as a whole.

An installation that does not require nuclear material for normal operations should be of safeguards interest if it possesses sufficient capacity to produce significant quantities of SFM. Evaluating this capacity requires a consideration of neutron emission characteristics and the introduction of undeclared fertile material, which a non-compliant actor might configure in various ways. Understanding the features and point at which designs could exhibit this capacity is essential to developing proportionate monitoring and inspection strategies, thereby verifying the absence of undeclared nuclear material to ensure exclusively peaceful use.

This presentation outlines this landscape and discusses an analysis framework utilising neutronics methods to characterise the operational environment of illustrative fusion systems under a technology misuse scenario. Through model predictions, the study highlights some technical observables and identifies nuclear forensic signatures that may signal a departure from declared, peaceful activities.

Caroline Shenton-Taylor

Dr Caroline Shenton-Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Nuclear Physics at the University of Surrey. Her research focuses on the application of machine learning to nuclear science, with interests including nuclear forensics, radiation detection, nuclear security, radiation health monitoring, and decommissioning. She has co-authored over 150 publications and technical reports spanning nuclear science, applied artificial intelligence, radiation detection and nuclear security. Before joining academia, she spent 10 years in the nuclear industry leading applied research and international technology development programmes. Alongside her research and teaching, she is actively involved in public engagement and science communication, delivering talks, media contributions and outreach activities that promote wider understanding of physics and artificial intelligence.

Machine Learning in Nuclear Forensics: Opportunities, Challenges and Trust

Machine learning (ML) has demonstrated success across many data-rich fields, applying these approaches to nuclear forensics presents a unique challenge in extracting reliable insight from complex and consequential datasets. The expanding range of ML approaches, exemplified by frameworks such as MIT’s periodic table of AI algorithms, highlights the need to select methods that are appropriate for both the application and the available data. Datasets used for training, validation and testing are equally important. Limitations in data quality, representation or provenance may influence the reliability of ML outcomes. The confidence in derived results requires clear interpretation, including meaningful distinctions between material detection and identification. Integrating scientific reasoning with legal decision-making is essential, as uncertainties and errors can extend beyond technical considerations when they influence forensic conclusions. This talk explores these challenges and the role and responsibility of academia in developing trustworthy machine learning approaches for nuclear forensics.

Tomoki Yamaguchi

Mr. Yamaguchi currently serves as Deputy Director of the Integrated Support Centre for Nuclear Non-proliferation, Security and Human Resource Development (ISCN) at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA). His areas of expertise include disarmament, safeguards, nuclear non-proliferation, and nuclear security.

He joined the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (now JAEA) in 1995 and worked on safeguards and physical protection at reprocessing, MOX fuel fabrication, and uranium enrichment facilities. He subsequently served with the Delegation of Japan to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Japan’s national safeguards authority (JSGO), and the Department of Safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a Safeguards Inspector covering countries of the former Soviet Union.

He has extensive experience in the technical, policy, and international aspects of safeguards, nuclear non-proliferation, and nuclear security.