TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY (TAMU) PROPOSES CONTINUING THE RESEARCH AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CENTER FOR EXCELLENCE IN NUCLEAR TRAINING AND UNIVERSITY-BASED RESEARCH (CENTAUR). THE SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES ARE: • ENHANCE UNDERSTANDING OF FISSION WITH NEW AND CONTINUING PROJECT LINES CONTRIBUTING TO NUCLEAR DATA FOR STOCKPILE STEWARDSHIP APPLICATIONS. • OBTAIN A MORE ACCURATE UNDERSTANDING VIA EXPERIMENT AND THEORY OF EXOTIC AND STABLE NUCLEI BELOW AND ABOVE DECAY THRESHOLDS, INTEGRATING THE OFTEN SEPARATE FIELDS OF NUCLEAR REACTIONS AND STRUCTURE. • DEVELOP MICROSCOPIC REACTION THEORIES, INCLUDING OPTICAL MODEL POTENTIALS FOR NUCLEON, D, AND ALPHA SCATTERING AND IN-MEDIUM NUCLEON-NUCLEON CROSS SECTIONS FOR PHOTON EMISSION IN HEAVY-ION COLLISIONS WITH BENCHMARKING EXPERIMENTS. • MEASURE NUCLEAR DATA RELEVANT TO NEUTRON AND CHARGED PARTICLE INDUCED REACTIONS. • DEVELOP A LOW-ENERGY NUCLEAR SCIENCE WORKFORCE BY SUPPORTING GRADUATE STUDENTS IN DYNAMIC RESEARCH AND AN OUTREACH PROGRAM TO OUR COMMUNITIES.