THIS PROJECT FOCUSES ON IMPROVING THE ACCURACY OF EXPERIMENTAL DATA FOR N-CAPTURE CROSS SECTIONS, BY PROVIDING NEW DATA, AND RESOLVING DISCREPANT DATA SETS. TWO APPROACHES ARE PROPOSED: DIRECT MEASUREMENTS, WHICH WILL TAKE ADVANTAGE OF A NEWLY ESTABLISHED NEUTRON IRRADIATION STATION (NIS) AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME (UND) AND DANCE AT LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LAB (LANL), AND INDIRECT DETERMINATION OF (N;¿ ) CROSS SECTIONS VIA NEWLY DEVELOPED METHODS BASED ON THE -SUMMING TECHNIQUE. TOGETHER WITH THE CROSS SECTION DATA, CONSTRAINTS FOR INPUTS TO HAUSER-FESHBACH (HF) CALCULATIONS FOR NUCLEI INVESTIGATED IN THIS PROJECT WILL BE PROVIDED, THUS REDUCING THE UNCERTAINTY IN THE CALCULATED REACTION CROSS SECTIONS AND PROVIDING IMPROVED HF CROSS SECTION MODELS IN THE A~90-100 MASS REGION. THE MEASUREMENTS FOCUS ON NUCLEI THAT ARE RELEVANT FOR THE STOCKPILE STEWARDSHIP PROGRAM AND THE NNSA MISSION, AS THEY ARE FISSION PRODUCTS (NB, ZR) OR ARE USED IN CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS (ZN, IN). THROUGH THE PROJECT, STUDENTS WILL BE TRAINED IN EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUES RELEVANT FOR THE NNSA MISSION. THEY WILL BECOME EXPERTS IN PARTICLE AND NEUTRON BEAM DELIVERY, NEUTRON AND DETECTION, MONTE CARLO METHODS, VARIOUS ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES, AND IN HF THEORY.