At LLNL, I supported the nuclear deterrence program NWAL in the Nuclear and Chemical Sciences Division. I chemically separated U, Pu, and other actinides from environmental matrices for MC-ICP-MS. I also contributed to nuclear forensics initiatives through radiochronometric and non-traditional stable isotope analyses of nuclear fuel materials.

My capstone project aimed to establish W isotope fractionation as a potential tracer of nuclear fuel processes. Because tungsten is a persistent contaminant throughout the nuclear fuel cycle, the isotopic composition of the tagalong tungsten can reveal a confiscated material’s history. Before we can reconstruct a material’s history from its isotopic composition, we need an idea of the isotopic composition it started with. To this end, I purified W and performed isotopic analyses on a global set of uranium ore concentrates, the starting material of the nuclear fuel cycle. These data constrain an isotopic range for the first step in the cycle that will be crucial for future interpretation of W isotopic composition within confiscated materials in nuclear forensic investigations (paper in preparation).