In a memo to staff members, Associate Director W. Scott Gibbs of Threat Identification and Response at Los Alamos National Laboratory announced late last week that N-4 (Safeguards and Security Systems Group) is being dissolved.

N Division recently became the Nuclear Engineering and Nonproliferation Division (NEN) to recognize and expand on two important capabilities for the Laboratory, Gibbs explained in the memo.

As the next step in furthering those capabilities, he decided that the International and Nuclear Systems Engineering Group (D-5) should join NEN to leverage that group’s expertise in reactors, nonproliferation and radiation transport.

Effective June 25, D-5 will become the Systems Design and Analysis group (NEN-5), he said.

The team of experts in the domain of nuclear fuel cycle and safeguards concepts and approaches that was formerly part of N-4 will join the group.

NEN-5 will continue to be led by Pratap Sadasivan and Jay Elson and for now will continue to be physically located at TA-16, Gibbs said, adding that Stacey Eaton, who has been acting Group Leader of N-4, will move to NEN-1 and will play a leadership role in resolving criticality safety issues at TA-35.

With these moves, N-4 will dissolve, Gibbs said in the memo.

“I want to thank the managers in both NEN and D divisions and the members of N-4 and D-5 for their patience while this move has been planned and approved,” he said in the memo. “Please give them your full support in their new roles.”

N-4 led the development and integration of safeguards systems, security technologies, and safeguards hardware and software solutions at LANL.

The Group provided important technical support to the U.S. government’s threat assessment and mitigation efforts, focusing on the complex interplay between technology and policy.