Help wanted: nuclear physicists

At a time when more nuclear physicists are needed to develop technologies for homeland security and meet expected growth in the nuclear power industry, the nation's universities are producing fewer of these researchers, cautions Ed Hartouni, a physicist at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

If the current downward trend continues, universities would be producing about 50 nuclear physicists annually by 2010. "In that same time period, my colleagues in the Laboratory's Nonproliferation, Homeland and International Security Directorate tell me they're going to want double the current 40 nuclear scientists they have to do more work for the Department of Homeland Security and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office," Hartouni says.

"Our job is to alert people that there is a diminishing supply and an increasing demand for nuclear physicists. The challenge for LLNL is to make the Laboratory an attractive place for nuclear scientists to come and pursue their research. The challenge for the country is to increase support for this research and to raise the visibility of the field and its importance."

Hartouni notes that one proposal that could provide a boost for nuclear physics is the Bush Administration's plan, called "The American Competitiveness Initiative," that would double funding for the physical sciences over the next seven years.

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