2023 Safety Award

The group is honored for its work in disposing of a legacy solution of plutonium that represented a severe weakness in NIST's safety posture. Because the solution was prepared from a batch of plutonium identical to one implicated in an earlier safety incident, its presence represented a threat to both NIST's safety and its reputation. The team solved numerous technical challenges and had to coordinate its efforts with the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — and with a civilian institution willing to receive the solution.