Mechanical Engineering Professor, David Morton, has received $1.9 million to expand a computer model that is already helping guide national decisions about placement of devices to detect nuclear smuggling attempts.

Morton and his colleagues consider a European map used to visualize potential routes of nuclear smugglers. With the grant from the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office of the Department of Homeland Security, Morton (left) and fellow mechanical engineering faculty will spend five years expanding his computer model for radiation detector placements based on detailed information about smuggling scenarios and models of smugglers’ strategic behavior. Assistant Professor Erich Schneider (center) will build the computer model’s description of the nuclear material being smuggled and radiation detectors' recognition of concealed material. Associate Professor Elmira Popova (right) will provide probability calculations, and run computer simulations to test the computer model.

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