The National Nuclear Physics Summer School, held annually since 1988, is an effort by the nuclear physics community to acquaint students with the forefront issues of the field and with the experimental and theoretical tools that are available to nuclear physics researchers. The intent is to broaden student appreciation for and interest in the field, while also strengthening them technically. Typically most of the field's major directions are represented in the lectures: hot and cold nuclear matter, electromagnetic physics, weak interactions, astrophysics, and nuclear structure. Advanced graduate students and beginning postdoctoral researchers are the target audience. School organizers are charged with identifying outstanding lecturers from theory and experiment, conducting the school in a manner that encourages discussion and interaction, and developing supporting materials, including an online archive of lectures that can serve as a long-term reference for participating students and for others who are interested in the current status of nuclear physics. School organizers are assisted by the Principal Investigators and by a Steering Committee appointed by the Division of Nuclear Physics of the American Physical Society.
The school is often the first opportunity for students to recognize the breadth of nuclear physics and to interact across subfields. Thus, it plays an important role in building a nuclear physics community. Student morale is enhanced by this opportunity and by the chance to meet with some of the field's leading researchers. The school allows students from under-represented groups to network with their peers. Students leave the school with stronger backgrounds in nuclear physics, and with new knowledge of their chosen specialties. As the lectures are preserved in an on-line archive, the students can return to this material when a need arises during their subsequent training and research. Students are given a chance to present talks and thus to gain experience in making presentations to a diverse audience.
