UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Matt Zerphy, assistant dean for operations and professor of practice in nuclear engineering at Penn State, has received a grant to support a mutual partnership between Penn State and the University of National and World Economy (UNWE) in Sofia, Bulgaria, to incorporate simulation tools into the curriculum of UNWE’s nuclear security master’s program. The grant was awarded by CRDF Global, an organization established by the U.S. National Science Foundation to promote international security, safety and sustainability through science, innovation and capacity-building programs, and is funded by the U.S. Department of State Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST). FIRST is a U.S. initiative that works with international partners contemplating the deployment and operation of advanced reactor technology, including small modular reactors, to do so under the highest standards of safety, security and nonproliferation.
Penn State and UNWE are both members of the International Nuclear Security Education Network and have signed a memorandum of cooperation to support a long-term exchange of knowledge toward shared goals in nuclear engineering.
“This partnership with UNWE is an important international dimension of Penn State’s nuclear workforce development initiative: FRONTIER, which stands for Forging a Renaissance of Nuclear Through Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Research,” Zerphy said. “The vision of FRONTIER extends beyond meeting the needs of Pennsylvania and the U.S.; it extends to building international partnerships that can support U.S. leadership in the responsible global deployment of advanced nuclear technologies.”
Along with Zerphy, Gary Meyers, IT consultant with Penn State Information Technology, and Daniel Holcomb, a doctoral candidate in nuclear engineering, are contributing to the project in collaboration with partners from UNWE and the IAEA-supported International Nuclear Security Education Network (INSEN) for the FIRST project. INSEN is a network of universities, educational institutions, and experts working together to strengthen nuclear security education.
In this Q&A, Zerphy discussed the importance of simulation tools in nuclear education, security’s role in facility design and the global impact this type of shared research could have in the future.
Q: How are Penn State and UNWE partnering for this project?
Zerphy: Our collaboration grew from relationships within the international nuclear security education community and then developed into a joint proposal focused on nuclear security, workforce development and education. The current FIRST project gives us a focused opportunity to put that partnership into practice. Penn State and UNWE are reviewing UNWE’s international master’s program in nuclear security — the only such program in the world, developed with the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)— curriculum together, integrating new modeling and simulation capabilities, developing practical exercises, training faculty to sustain those capabilities and developing a plan so the work continues after this initial project ends.
The mutual benefit comes from building capabilities together. We can help UNWE accelerate implementation of advanced simulation-based physical and cybersecurity education based on the experience we have already gained at Penn State. In return, working with faculty and students in a different academic, regulatory and national context challenges us to think differently about how we teach these subjects. Their questions and approaches help us improve the exercises and curriculum we bring back to our own Penn State students.
Q: What are the goals of this grant?
Zerphy: The project combines curriculum review, faculty development and implementation. We are adapting Penn State materials for demonstrations and exercises using the IAEA’s Asherah Nuclear Power Plant Simulator 2.0 (ANS2.0), which is a cyber-physical simulation environment for nuclear cybersecurity education and training. It uses fictional facilities and scenarios so participants can work through realistic situations without the security and sensitivity concerns associated with modeling an actual nuclear facility.
We will also use simulation tools developed by Sandia National Laboratories: PathTrace and Scribe3D. Through train-the-trainer activities, UNWE faculty are learning to operate the tools, facilitate exercises, and continue refining and developing instructional material. As students and faculty continue to use the tools, we’ll gain feedback that we can use to improve the curriculum, which they can test.
But the larger objective is workforce development, which becomes increasingly important as nuclear technology evolves. Advanced reactors, small modular reactors and new deployment models create opportunities, but they also change the security challenges that designers, operators and regulators have to address. Security is most effective when it is considered from the beginning as part of facility design, rather than added later. That requires more than producing security specialists. We also need engineers, operators, designers and other members of the nuclear workforce to understand when security matters, when specialized security expertise needs to be brought into a project, and how security considerations interact with engineering, operations and regulatory requirements.
Ultimately, we aim to establish a durable partnership that supports Bulgaria’s nuclear workforce development. If we document the implementation well, the methods and lessons learned at UNWE can also help other universities introduce simulation-enabled nuclear security education without having to start from scratch.
Q: What educational opportunities do simulation tools provide?
Zerphy: Virtual simulation environments let students do things that lectures alone cannot: make a decision, see the consequences and try again in a safe, repeatable environment. In cybersecurity, students can examine a control-system network, interpret realistic communications, identify signs of an attack, design defensive approaches and observe how digital changes affect physical processes. In physical security, they can construct a facility security model, explore adversary pathways, evaluate detection opportunities and see how changes to a design affect security performance. The ability to apply concepts makes complex material much more tangible.
Our work in nuclear security education is continuously evolving to incorporate the latest in advanced-reactor security-by-design concepts as nuclear facility design and regulation move toward more risk-informed, performance-based and technology-inclusive approaches. Simulation tools give students an opportunity to ask not just “How would I protect this facility?” but “How could I make better design decisions now so that security is more effective and better integrated with the facility from the beginning?”
The simulation tools also make education more repeatable and adaptable. Instructors can revisit the same security problem, change assumptions or compare alternatives without rebuilding a physical training environment for every case. That can be particularly valuable as advanced reactors and small modular reactors introduce new technologies, configurations and deployment concepts for which the industry does not yet have decades of operating experience.
Q: What value do simulations tools bring to industry? How do they help prepare students for working in real nuclear facilities?
Zerphy: The most important impact is on the people who design, operate and protect nuclear facilities. Virtual environments allow students and professionals to practice decisions that would be difficult, costly or inappropriate to rehearse at an operating facility. They can explore cyber events, adversary actions, physical-protection strategies and alternative facility designs without placing equipment, operations or personnel at risk.
That makes simulation particularly useful for security-by-design because both cyber and physical security can be considered while a facility or system is still being designed. With some tools, learners can study cyber-physical interactions and incident response. With others, they can model physical-protection systems and examine adversary pathways, detection opportunities and critical detection points. With yet others, they can visualize facilities and security scenarios in three dimensions and use those environments to support scenario-based training.
Q: How are these simulation tools being used at Penn State in nuclear education and workforce development?
Zerphy: We’re supporting UNWE with the experience and capability we’ve built here at Penn State. For example, my colleague from Penn State Information Technology, Gary Meyers, and I use ANS2.0 in NUCE/CYBER 443, “Cybersecurity for Nuclear Facilities,” a new, full-semester course serving undergraduate and graduate students from nuclear engineering, cybersecurity and related programs. Student teams use immersive scenarios to investigate and respond to simulated attacks, while course activities connect the simulator to nuclear cybersecurity guidance and concepts. For physical security, covered in NUCE 442: Nuclear Security System Design, we have increasingly incorporated modeling and simulation tools alongside traditional physical-security instruction.
These experiences are helping us to support UNWE faculty and adapt their curriculum to include the additional capabilities of these virtual simulation environments.
What we learn from working with UNWE faculty and students will feed back into our own teaching at Penn State. Questions and perspectives from UNWE are already prompting us to think differently about exercises and how we teach the material. That is the value of a genuine university partnership; and, in this case, it grew out of professional relationships and friendships developed through INSEN.
Q: What’s next for the partnership?
Zerphy: We view this initial nuclear security project as a launchpad rather than an endpoint. From the beginning, the concept has been to establish a successful model that could grow into broader workforce-development collaboration with UNWE and other Bulgarian universities as part of the FIRST team.
A country needs engineers, operators, technicians, cybersecurity specialists, security professionals, regulators, skilled tradespeople, and many others to successfully deploy and sustain nuclear technology. The opportunity is to help Bulgaria develop more of that workforce development infrastructure domestically while building durable educational, technical and economic connections with U.S. institutions and U.S. nuclear technology.
That is the real win-win. Bulgaria strengthens the workforce and educational infrastructure it needs for its future energy security. Penn State students and faculty gain international collaboration, new perspectives and stronger educational capabilities. And at the national level, partnerships like this help create the human infrastructure necessary for countries considering advanced nuclear energy to work successfully with the United States and U.S. nuclear technology. FIRST itself is explicitly designed to strengthen those kinds of strategic relationships and technical collaborations.
For Penn State, that means our FRONTIER work is not only about preparing Pennsylvania's workforce for the next generation of nuclear energy. It positions Penn State to help shape the education, research and workforce ecosystem surrounding the responsible global deployment of advanced nuclear technology.