Call for Papers

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

The Nuclear Criticality Safety Division 2025 Conference bridges the four-year gap between successive International Conferences on Nuclear Criticality Safety (ICNC) and provides a forum for exchange among technical disciplines that impact criticality safety, including operational criticality safety, experimental criticality safety, nuclear data, and radiation transport code development. The theme of NCSD 2025 is Many Missions, One Goal: Collaborating for a Safer Tomorrow. At this conference, the top minds from the broad NCS community meet to collaborate on new developments in the field and discuss ideas on how to improve the industry for the next generation. From dedicated session tracks like STACY Refurbishment and Restart, to exciting workshops on Plutonium Chemistry, the NCSD conference has opportunities for any and every member of our community.

ABSTRACT GUIDELINES

Participants who would like to present at NCSD 2025 may submit either full papers (6-10 pages) for standard-length presentations or summary papers (1-4 pages) for 10-minute Lightning Talks. Lightning Talks are highly encouraged for junior members of the NCSD community. Participants who would like to submit either a full paper or summary must first submit an abstract to the Electronic Paper Submission and Review (EPSR) portal for review by the Technical Program Committee. The abstract must have a maximum of one page identifying title, authors, and affiliations, with up to one figure or table, describing the key concepts of the paper. A wide range of topic areas are highlighted under Technical Tracks on p. 2. The abstract template is on the NCSD 2025 conference web page. Additionally, please follow these formatting/submittal guidelines:

• Do not use all capital letters for the title or any part of any authors’ names. For the title of the abstract, Capitalize the First Letter of Major Words. Author names should be First Name or Initial(s) followed by Last Name.
• The names of all authors should be entered into the Authors page in the EPSR portal. List the authors in the same order in which their names appear in the abstract. Author information in the conference program is derived from the entries in the EPSR’s Authors page.
• In the EPSR, authors’ affiliations should match the affiliation provided on the abstract itself. If an author has multiple affiliations, enter the ONE that should be included in the program, assuming the abstract and subsequent paper are accepted.
• Choose, during submission, which Track (as listed on p. 2) corresponds best to your abstract. If unsure of your Track, choose one most closely related and members of the Technical Program Committee will adjust as necessary and notify the author(s).
• Choose, during submission, whether the abstract corresponds to a Full Paper (i.e., standard-length presentation) or a Summary Paper (i.e., Lightning Talk).

Notification of abstract approval and rejection and any associated comments will be provided to authors by February 14, 2025. Following abstract approval, authors will submit the final draft of their full paper or summary via the EPSR portal to the same location (i.e., track and sub-bullet) unless otherwise instructed.

Authors will be notified by May 13, 2025 about their acceptance decision. Authors of accepted papers must agree to register and attend the conference and present their papers. Papers or summaries that are not presented at the conference will not appear in the final conference publication.

PAGE CHARGES

All full papers, for standard-length presentations, are limited to 10 pages. If an exception is made and a paper over 10 pages is accepted, there will be a page charge of $100 per page starting with p. 11. Summaries for Lightning Talks that exceed four pages will be rejected. If an exception is made and a summary over four pages is accepted, page charges are $100 per page for p. 5 and above.

TECHNICAL TRACKS

1. SPECIAL TRACK: MANY MISSIONS, ONE GOAL: COLLABORATING FOR A SAFER TOMORROW
   Track Lead: Brittany Williamson
   Track Co-Leads: JAEA, Satoshi Gunji
   1a. Special Session: STACY Refurbishment and Restart
   1b. Special Session: Spotlight on Collaborative Opportunities
2. COMPARISON OF ANSI AND ISO STANDARDS
   Track Lead: Amy Van Der Vyver
   Track Co-Lead: John Miller
3. CODES AND CALCULATIONAL METHODS
   Track Lead: Travis Greene
   Track Co-Lead: Michael Rising
4. NUCLEAR DATA
   Track Lead: Noah Andrew Kleedtke
   Track Co-Lead: Mathieu Dupont
5. MEASUREMENTS, EXPERIMENTS, AND BENCHMARKS
   Track Lead: Rowdy Davis
   Track Co-Lead: Jesson Hutchinson
6. CRITICALITY ACCIDENTS, DETECTION, AND INCIDENTS
   Track Lead: Aaron Tamashiro
   Track Co-Lead: John Bess
7. FUEL MANAGEMENT, STORAGE, TRANSPORTATION, AND DISPOSAL
   Track Lead: Kim Coggins
   Track Co-Lead: Luiz Leal
8. OPERATIONAL PRACTICES AND INTERFACING
   Track Lead: Shauntay Coleman
   Track Co-Lead: Darwin Damba
9. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER, AND TRAINING
   Track Lead: James Cole
   Track Co-Lead: Deborah Hill
10. FUTURE CHALLENGES IN NCS
    Track Lead: Ashley Raster
    Track Co-Lead: Catherine Percher

JOURNAL PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITY

NCSD 2025 has partnered with the ANS journal Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE), the first and oldest peer-reviewed journal in our field, to publish a special issue of journal papers. Full papers submitted to the conference may be published in a special edition of the NSE journal. This publication is optional at the request of the submitter. Your journal paper should be derived from your conference paper but must be updated to include final results and a full description of the methods/technology. There are no page limits for this version of your paper. There are no publication fees for standard publication; however, open access is available for a fee. Your journal paper will go through additional peer review by NSE following the conference; this invitation is not a guarantee of acceptance.