Dignitary
John C. Wagner, Idaho National Labs
Organizers
Dr. Todd Allen is Professor at the University of Michigan and a Senior Fellow at Third Way, a DC base Think Tank, supporting their Clean Energy Portfolio. He was the Deputy Director for Science and Technology at the Idaho National Laboratory from January 2013 through January 2016. Prior to INL he was a Professor in the Engineering Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin, a position held from September 2003 through December 2012 and again from January 2016-December 2018. From March 2008-December 2012, he was concurrently the Scientific Director of the Advanced Test Reactor National Scientific User Facility at INL. Prior to joining the University of Wisconsin, he was a Nuclear Engineer at Argonne National Laboratory-West in Idaho Falls. His Doctoral Degree is in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Michigan (1997) and his Bachelor’s Degree in Nuclear Engineering is from Northwestern University (1984). Prior to graduate work, he was an officer in the United States Navy Nuclear Power Program.
Dr. David Novog is an internationally recognized researcher and engineer with 25 years of experience in academia and industry and holds an Industrial Research Chair in Nuclear Safety.
His research interests include reactor risk assessment methodologies, severe accident mitigation, and emergency planning and served in an advisory role on the recent Ontario Nuclear Emergency Response Plan update.
An emerging area of research in Dr. Novog’s group examines the vital role of large and small modular reactors (SMRs) in reducing humankind’s CO2 footprint and he is the Principal Investigator for the federally funded Small Modular Advanced Reactor Training (SMART) program.
Dr. Musongela, was born in Congo (DRC) but studied most of her life in Canada. She is a Research Scientist and Manager of the NSERC CREATE Small Modular Advanced Reactor Training (SMART) Program in the Department of Engineering physics at McMaster University located in Hamilton, Ontario. Dr. Musongela earned her PhD in Nuclear Engineering from Polytechnique Montréal located in the province of Quebec. Her thesis work in computational physics was aimed at implementing a new and more accurate leakage model within the deterministic lattice code DRAGON developed at Polytechnique. Since 2020, Dr. Musongela is working on various research projects with Dr. David Novog at McMaster University.
Dawn Scates, Idaho National Labs
Lecturers
Ms. Christi Bell is Associate Vice Chancellor and Executive Director of the University of Alaska Anchorage, Business Enterprise Institute. Bell has provided consulting and technical assistance to community-based and private-sector organizations throughout Alaska for nearly 30 years. Through her current position, she provides leadership to a team of 70+ professionals, faculty, and students and a variety of economic development programs, including the UA Center for Economic Development, the Alaska Small Business Development Center, the Alaska Procurement Technical Center, the Alaska Manufacturing Extension Partnership, the Alaska Cooperative Development Center, as well as the Applied Environmental Research Center and Center for Strategic Partnerships and Research.
Bell holds a CEcD (Certificate in Economic Development) from the International Economic Development Council, an MBTI certificate, a Greenbelt, as well as a Master of Business degree and a Master of Science degree in Resource Management, both from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Bell and her husband have two fantastic boys, both on engineering paths. The family loves to backcountry hike and hang out in the great Alaskan outdoors. Many adventures are had with Amber (Golden Doodle) and Rubi (Poodle).
With over 25 years of experience, Marcio Paes Barreto is an experienced agile leader who has worked in a variety of areas, including program management, leadership development, business development, marketing, and communications. Currently, he holds the position of Director of Industrial Development at the Wyoming Energy Authority, where he leads the development of both emerging and legacy energy industries.
Throughout his career, Marcio has established himself as a thought leader in digital technologies, program management, and leadership development. He has a successful track record of leading cross-functional teams and creating a collaborative work environment to achieve project outcomes. Before his work in the non-governmental and governmental sectors, Marcio held leadership positions at various prominent information technology companies. In these roles, he drove business growth, developed new services, and expanded their client base.
Marcio’s expertise and dedication to his work have been recognized with numerous awards and accolades. Additionally, he is a dedicated educator, sharing his knowledge and expertise with the next generation of leaders in his field. With a background in industrial engineering, he considers himself a student of growth and development topics.
Outside of work, Marcio enjoys hunting, backcountry traveling, and exploring new cultures. He lives in Laramie, Wyoming, with his wife and two children. For more information, please refer to his LinkedIn profile.
Christine King
Directory, Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN)
Christine.King@inl.gov
As Director of the Gateway for Acceleration in Nuclear (GAIN) initiative, Christine King facilitates a range of public-private partnerships to help move innovative nuclear energy technologies toward commercialization, while ensuring the continued safe, reliable, and economic operation of the existing nuclear fleet. In addition, GAIN works to ensure that clean energy plans value the opportunity nuclear energy provides to meet decarbonization and sustainability goals. Ms King is regularly invited to introduce advanced nuclear energy to state legislatures, utility commissioners, energy planners, and investors. Prior to GAIN, she has worked for a venture capital firm, led a nuclear division for a consulting firm, and led long-term R&D for a non-profit, and worked in the field during nuclear plant outages.
BS in chemical engineering from North Carolina State University
MBA from Lynchburg College
Earned second-degree black belt in Taekwondo; studying Taiko drumming.
Dr. Brenden Heidrich is the Director of the Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF), led out of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). As the NSUF Director, he focuses on building a program to enable nuclear energy researchers to access national capabilities to further their endeavors. He previously served as the NSUF Chief Scientist for Irradiations and the Irradiation Testing Department Manager for the Nuclear Fuels and Materials Division at the INL. Before moving to the INL, Dr. Heidrich was a research professor at the Radiation Science and Engineering Center at the Pennsylvania State University where he taught reactor physics and nuclear security and was a licensed senior reactor operator.
Dr. Heidrich’s career has been focused on the design, operation, and utilization of research and test reactors to perform research, education, and outreach. Beyond his leadership role with the NSUF, he also assists the Department of Energy in research reactor infrastructure areas. He is a licensed professional nuclear engineer in Idaho and Pennsylvania.
Dr. Heidrich learned nuclear engineering in the US Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, serving onboard the USS Enterprise nuclear aircraft carrier. Later he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Nuclear Engineering from Pennsylvania State University, and doctoral degree in Energy and Mineral Engineering from Penn State. He serves on the Professional Engineering Examination Committee and the executive committees of the Isotopes and Radiation and Human Factors Instrumentation and Controls Divisions of the American Nuclear Society.
Tara Righetti, JD, CPL (email: LinkedIn) Professor Righetti is the Occidental Chair of Energy and Environmental Policies and the University of Wyoming and is the co-director of the University of Wyoming Nuclear Energy Research Center. She is tenured, full professor and member of the faculties of the College of Law, the School of Energy Resources, and the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources. Professor Righetti’s research focuses on the property, administrative law, and justice issues associated with energy development and decarbonization. In 2021-2022 she served as a Fulbright Research Scholar at the Université de Lille, in Lille, France where she worked on industrial decarbonization projects related to CCUS and the circular economy. Her research has been cited in two opinions of the West Virginia Supreme Court and her articles were named in the top 20 for the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review for 2021 and 2022. She is licensed to practice in Texas and California and is a certified professional landman.
As co-director of NERC, Professor Righetti works with faculty across campus and with state leadership on capacity building related to nuclear technologies. She also leads the University of Wyoming involvement with the Emerging Market Analysis (EMA) initiative with Idaho National Labs where she has coordinated projects related to social license, stakeholder engagement, public perceptions. Her personal nuclear research relates to two ongoing NEUP grants: The first is a project with University of Michigan that explores the mobilization of environmental justice principals for nuclear generation siting and the second is a project led by University of Wisconsin that examines the possibility of open architecture to improve nuclear construction costs and timelines. Professor Righetti will be conducting analyses of the applicable legal and regulatory frameworks for both projects.
Dr. John H. Jackson is a Distinguished Staff Scientist/Engineer at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in Idaho Falls, Idaho. He currently is the National Technical Director for the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy’s Microreactor Program which is focused on supporting development and deployment of rapidly evolving microreactor technology. Before taking on his current role, he served as the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) Technical Interface where he ensured that the nuclear industry had facilitated and appropriate access to DOE national laboratory capability. Prior to this, John was the Industry Program Lead for the Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) with a focus on characterization of irradiated fuels and materials. In these capacities, John has worked closely with the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy and the nuclear industry to ensure that DOE facilities are used effectively to maintain the current reactor fleet and to enable innovation. John has over twenty years of experience in the areas of mechanical testing and fracture mechanics. He also has over three years of experience in extreme environment materials characterization and drilling mechanics at the ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company in Houston, Texas. John holds Ph.D. (2001) and MS (1998) degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle, WA, and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Technology (1995) from Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA.
Paul Kjellander served as President of the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (IPUC), having been appointed to four six-year terms beginning in 1999. He was the longest serving President of the IPUC. He recently retired from state service and now works as a consultant in the utility sector. His new work through the Idaho National Lab focuses on advanced energy resource development. Kjellander also serves as a senior advisor with Public Utilities Fortnightly.
As a commissioner, Kjellander was a member of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ (NARUC) board of directors and executive committee, Kjellander was elected to serve as President of the association in 2020. As NARUC president he established a multiyear conference theme for the association and worked with commissioners at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to create the Joint Federal-State Task Force on Electric Transmission.
During his tenure at NARUC, Kjellander served on NARUC’s Committee on Consumer Affairs, the Electricity Committee, and was the past Chair of the Committee on Telecommunications. He also was a member of the Subcommittee on Regulatory and Industry Diversity and the Subcommittee on Education and Research.
Kjellander also served as President of the National Council on Electricity Policy, which is funded by the US Department of Energy and managed by NARUC. He was also a board member of the Financial Research Institute and the New Mexico State University’s Current Issues Advisory Board. Other service included membership on the Federal Communications Commission’s 706 Joint Board, the North American Numbering Council, and the Advisory Council of the Electric Power Research Institute. Additionally, he served as chairman of the FCC’s Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations.
Kjellander’s regulatory service was briefly interrupted in 2007 when Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter tasked him with creating Idaho’s Office of Energy Resources (OER). This cabinet level position played a significant role in establishing the state’s energy policy direction.
During his time at OER, which is now known as the Office of Energy and Mineral Resources, Kjellander created an aggressive energy efficiency program funded through the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Kjellander established the Idaho Strategic Energy Alliance and remained a member of that group until his retirement from state service. He also served on the board of the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO).
Before joining the commission in 1999, Kjellander was elected to three terms in the Idaho House of Representatives, where he served from 1994-1999. As a legislator, Kjellander served on multiple committees, including House State Affairs, Judiciary and Rules, Ways and Means, Local Government, and Transportation. During his final term in office, Kjellander was elected to leadership as Chairman of the House Majority Caucus.
Prior to his legislative service, Kjellander was director of Boise State University’s College of Applied Technology Distance Learning, where he earned tenured faculty status and served in various positions including program head of broadcast technology, station manager of BSU Radio Network, director of the Special Projects Unit for BSU Radio and as BSU Radio’s director of News and Public Affairs. As a broadcast journalist, Kjellander received over 30 professional awards for his reporting. He also contributed reports to multiple regional and nationally distributed programs.
Kjellander is also a painter who’s work has appeared on magazine and book covers. Most recently he illustrated a book titled “Heroes of the Storms”. His paintings also hang in private collections and several pieces from his series “The Legislature at Work” can be found in the Idaho State House.
Kjellander earned undergraduate degrees in communications, psychology, and art from Muskingum University in Ohio, and earned a master’s degree in telecommunications from Ohio University.
Kjellander and his wife Radelle have three children…a daughter Allison who practices law in Boise and twin sons Skyler and Justus who completed their MBAs and work in Salt Lake City.
Margot Hurlbert has a B. Admin. (Great Distinction) from the University of Regina (1985), an LL.B. (Osgoode) (1987), an LL.M. (Osgoode) (2005) in Constitutional Law with a focus on energy, natural resource, indigenous and environmental issues, and a Ph.D. (University of Amsterdam) in Social and Behaviour Sciences with a thesis “Adaptive Governance of Disaster: Drought and Flood in Rural Areas” published by Springer. Before entering academia Margot was the Assistant General Counsel of the Legal Department at SaskPower.
Her research interests focus on energy, climate change, agriculture, and water. Margot has lead and participated in many SSHRC, NSERC and IDRC research projects, serves on the editorial boards of international journals, is the Lead of the Science, Technology and Innovation Research Cluster at Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy in Regina. Margot is Coordinating Lead Author of a chapter of the Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Land and Climate (2019) and a Review Editor for AR6. Margot sits on Future Earth’s Earth Commission Working Group on ‘Transformations’, and is a Scientific Coordinator, Task Force on Earth System Law and a Senior Research Fellow of the Earth Systems Governance Project (Future Earth), Delft, the Netherlands.
Gaston Meskens holds master degrees in theoretical physics and nuclear engineering from the University of Ghent (Belgium). He works part-time with the Science and Technology Studies group of the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK•CEN and with the Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of the University of Ghent.
He has twenty+ years of experience in participative and transdisciplinary research related to the ethics of governance of issues such as sustainable development, energy, climate change and radioactive waste management and with the policy processes of the UNFCCC, UNCSD, UN-NPT, and of the research-related activities of the EC.
Since 2006, he is member of the steering committee of the Constituency of Research-oriented Independent NGOs towards the UNFCCC and was chair of the constituency from 2016 to 2018.
In the previous years, he also participated as invited expert in Belgian parliamentary and public hearings on the ethics of risk-inherent technology governance, in several Technical Committees of the IAEA and of the OECD and in UN missions in the frame of sustainable development. At SCK•CEN Gaston Meskens is now working as researcher, writer, lecturer and mediator of dialogue on ethics in relation to science, technology and democratic decision making.
Diane Cameron is Head of the Nuclear Technology Development and Economics Division at the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). In her role at the NEA, she leads an expert team of economists and scientists that supports energy policy and nuclear energy policy development among NEA Member Countries by advancing evidence-based, authoritative assessments and analyses in the areas of nuclear economics, financing, and cost reduction, as well as nuclear technology, innovation, and the fuel cycle.
From 2014 to 2021, Diane was Director of the Nuclear Energy Division with the Government of Canada. As Director, she headed up the division responsible for leading and co-ordinating Canadian public policy on nuclear energy, and served as Chair of Canada’s Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Roadmap and Action Plan. She joined the Government of Canada in 2007 to work on energy, environment, and economic policy – including international relations and negotiations. Prior to her tenure with the Government of Canada, she worked in management consulting and engineering in the private sector specializing in global value chains and international logistics.
A Canadian national, Diane holds a Master’s Degree in Technology Policy from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she was named Alfred Keil Fellow for Wiser Uses of Science and Technology. Diane also holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo.
Diane lives in Paris, France, with her three children and corgi.
Hitesh Bindra is an Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Purdue University. He is the director of the Nuclear Energy Systems Transport (NuEST) laboratory where his research group focuses on thermal-fluid sciences with applications in advanced nuclear reactors and heat storage systems. His group members have developed multiple scaled experimental facilities to investigate safety and design issues in Gen 4 small-modular reactors. He has several years of industrial experience as a nuclear power plant engineer and thermal systems engineer. Dr. Bindra has co-invented and developed heat storage technologies for combined cycle power plants, nuclear hybrid energy systems and other localized applications.
Zahra Mohaghegh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). She is the director of the Socio-Technical Risk Analysis (SoTeRiA) Research Laboratory at UIUC, advancing risk science and applications for the safety of complex technological systems such as commercial nuclear power plants and advanced reactors. Mohaghegh has published widely on probabilistic risk assessment, probabilistic physics of failure analysis, human-system reliability modeling, risk-informed decision making, and uncertainty analysis.
Gabrielle Hoelzle is the senior project manager and former lead data scientist at the Fastest Path to Zero (FPTZ) initiative within The University of Michigan Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences. Gabriellehas led the development of a series of web applications focused on the deployment of advanced nuclear reactor development both nationally and internationally, that go beyond regulatory requirements to also consider socioeconomic, political, and social and environmental justice considerations.
Glen Murrell is the Director of Community and Regional Engagement at the Idaho National Laboratory. In this role, he coordinates INL’s regional outreach in Idaho, Alaska, Wyoming, Utah and Montana, and manages a team of outreach and engagement specialists and programs. Prior to joining INL, Glen served as the inaugural executive director of the Wyoming Energy Authority, where he led development of Wyoming’s energy strategy, and the strategic transformation of Wyoming’s energy economy including promoting the importance of transformative technologies like Hydrogen and advanced reactors. Glen has also served in a variety of leadership roles aimed at advancing projects and technologies in the oil and gas industry for General Electric and Baker Hughes. Glen has more than 20 years of experience in energy related technology development and deployment and has served in senior roles in academic, corporate, and public sectors. He holds a master’s in geology from the University of Waikato in New Zealand and a doctorate in geology from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Dr. Paul W. Talbot is a modeling scientist and software architect with experience in industry, academics, and government laboratories. Since joining INL in 2014, Paul has worked in analysis and tool development in several areas, including uncertainty quantification, sensitivity analysis and dimensionality reduction, reduced-order modeling, robust and stochastic optimization, technoeconomic analysis, and digital twins for static and real-time decision making. Paul worked in collaboration with the University of New Mexico and Idaho National Laboratory on advanced uncertainty quantification techniques for his doctoral research. Paul earned a Nuclear Engineering Ph.D. at the University of New Mexico and M.S. at Oregon State University, and a Physics B.S. from BYU-Idaho. Throughout his collegiate experience, he worked with nuclear plant following at AREVA NP as well as with Idaho National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Paul is currently a senior developer for the RAVEN uncertainty and risk analysis software, and the owner and technical lead of technoeconomic analysis package HERON.
Dr. Kathleen Araújo is the Director for the CAES Energy Policy Institute & Associate Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems, Innovation, & Policy at Boise State. She is responsible for executive oversight of research and advising for the policy arm of a consortium of public universities and Idaho National Laboratory that entails partnerships across the consortium as well as with state, regional, national and international entities.
Dr. Araújo specializes in decisionmaking and policy associated with energy transitions, resilience, and industrial hubs. She writes about strategies for integrating resilience planning with net zero aims, and about management of different forms of disruption. Her book, Low Carbon Energy Transitions: Turning Points in National Policy and Innovation (Oxford University Press) examines social acceptance, industrial hubs, and infrastructure in decarbonizing countries following the 1973 oil crisis. Her book, Routledge Handbook of Energy Transitions (Routledge), provides an overview of the state of knowledge in the field of energy transitions.
Specific to nuclear technology, Dr. Araújo has studied a range of subjects, including adoption, regional diversification and regulatory change in emerging markets, consent-based siting of waste, national programs and international policies, as well as safety, security and resilience. Her analysis encompasses potential and challenges for regional diversification with advanced nuclear technology vs. alternative options for economic development (e.g. critical minerals mining) with the Emerging Energy Markets Analysis Initiative, based out of Idaho National Laboratory, as well as the Roosevelt Project led by MIT and Harvard. She has examined nuclear safety in Japan’s energy strategy post-Fukushima, in addition to nuclear policy and technology choices in other nuclear countries pre- and post- Fukushima. Her breadth of coverage spans international nuclear policies tied to cyber, drone and proliferation risk. She has also served as the lead for Boise State on a multi-institutional graduate certificate for nuclear safeguards and security. She has presented at the Fukushima Medical Center, University of Cambridge and other forums. Dr. Araújo earned her PhD at MIT and completed joint post-doctoral research with Harvard’s Managing the Atom Program and Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program. She consults for inter-governmental organizations, utilities, and communities.
Stephanie Weir is the National Reactor Innovation Center’s (NRIC) Siting and Regulatory Strategy Manager. She is responsible for developing and managing NRIC strategy and projects relating to advanced reactor siting, including collaborating directly with and seeking input from industry, the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, national laboratories, universities, tribes, and other stakeholders. She is also responsible for developing, managing, and executing NRIC’s national strategy relating to regulatory and siting risk reduction, in coordination with NRIC’s Director. Stephanie holds a JD as well as B.S. degrees in geology and physical science.
Mr. Yasir Arafat is leading the Department of Energy MARVEL project and is the national Technical Area Lead for the DOE Microreactor Program. Organizationally, he is the technology lead for microreactors at the Nuclear Science and Technology Directorate at Idaho National Laboratory. He has 13 years of experience leading and executing nuclear research and development and plant design, including Westinghouse AP1000®, Westinghouse SMR, fusion power plant, eVinci & DeVinci microreactors at Westinghouse and DOE’s MARVEL test microreactor at INL. He was one of the industry pioneers of microreactors and led the Westinghouse eVinci™ Micro Reactor Program and DOE’s MARVEL reactor.
Mr. Arafat specializes in leading complex engineering projects, model-based systems engineering, advanced manufacturing, thermodynamic process modeling/simulation, agile product development, and innovation strategy. Mr. Arafat has been granted 11 patents and three provisional patents for his inventions, with additional four patent applications under review.
Gregory Core has functioned as a customer-facing project and program manager for more than a decade and currently serves as the Technical Program Manager for the Natrium Demonstration Reactor Support Program for the National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC). In this role, he is responsible for ensuring timely and efficient delivery of critical licensing and development data from the Idaho National Laboratory that supports TerraPower’s Natrium demonstration nuclear reactor.
Prior to his role with NRIC, Core was a Program and Project Manager within the Nuclear Fuel and Materials division at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). In this role he oversaw a portfolio of industry-led projects performed at INL. These included nuclear fuel design and fabrication, post-irradiation examination, irradiation testing, data analysis and management, as well as experiment hardware design. During his tenure at INL he also managed the design, analysis, fabrication, and irradiation of a variety of fueled experiments in the Advanced Test Reactor. These efforts culminated in the first-ever experimental irradiation of extruded metallic nuclear fuel in 2019.
Core began his career at Westinghouse Electric Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as a Nuclear Designer. In this role he provided effective nuclear fuel loading strategies to customers. Following that appointment, he functioned as an Engineering Project Manager for Westinghouse. Core supported a variety of nuclear power utilities throughout the world by directing the fuel design and corresponding licensing and safety analyses for Pressurized Water Reactor reload cores.
Mr. Core received a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University in 2008. He became a certified Project Management Professional in 2015.
Jason K Hansen is a Sr. Research Economist at the Idaho National Laboratory with a PhD from the University of New Mexico in environmental and natural resource economics. Focusing on nuclear energy, and with experience in bioenergy, Hansen leads research in areas where energy economics plays a role, such as coal-to-nuclear transitions, energy market analysis, the political economy of light water reactor technology development, cost analysis of unit operations in the nuclear fuel cycle, regional economic impacts of nuclear investments, financial risks in biomass feedstock supply chains, and sustainable land management in bioenergy agriculture practices. Hansen’s published work, more than 50 publications, appears in peer reviewed journals, conference papers, and technical reports in the fields of energy and resource economics, public sector economics, and computer science. Hansen’s interest in developing the next generation of researchers is reflected in academic service on dissertation and thesis committees and mentoring junior staff at INL, having mentored over 20 young researchers. In addition to research at INL, Hansen is an adjunct faculty member in the College of Business at Idaho State University.
As GAIN’s Operations Manager, Holly is responsible for contracting, budgeting, accounting, and strategic planning for the DOE initiative.
She also leads specific areas within GAIN, one of which is the management of the Legacy Document Projects. This entails interfacing with industry to determine their legacy document needs; working with contacts within the DOE Laboratory Complex to locate and review the documents; facilitating document acquisitions; working export control and public release issues with the labs and DOE headquarters; and, ultimately, providing the documents to the nuclear industry.
Holly also leads the technical review process for the GAIN NE Voucher Program. This includes managing voucher proposals and panel review logistics; interfacing with the voucher review team and voucher project leads at all the labs; capturing and analyzing voucher metrics; and administering the final reporting process.
Holly is a member of the Project Management Institute. She has an MBA from Idaho State University and a BA in Journalism from Brigham Young University.
Dr. Elizabeth Worsham is a Systems Integration Engineer at Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Her work includes modeling and analysis of nuclear heat and power systems and economic analysis of power and product markets. Elizabeth currently leads the Nuclear-Driven Chemical Conversion Processes case study at INL to analyze pathways to convert coal to non-fuel products, and to convert captured CO2 to carbon- and hydrogen-based chemicals. Elizabeth is also involved in the lab’s efforts to support decarbonization in the industrial heat and power sector through integration of advanced reactors and SMRs. In addition, Dr. Worsham supports international collaborations through the Department of State’s Foundational Infrastructure for the Responsible use of SMR Technology (FIRST) as a subject matter expert on non-electric applications for nuclear power. Elizabeth received her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (2017) and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University (2020).
Marc Schyns graduated as civil engineer in electro-mechanics at Liège University in Belgium. During his work at the Centre for Research in Metallurgy, he coordinated and was involved in several projects of the European framework programs focused on the development of advanced instrumentation. Between 2008 and 2010 he lead the Advanced Reactor Instrumentation group at the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK CEN. SCK CEN is a leader in nuclear research, services and education mainly focused on climate-neutral energy production by means of innovative nuclear systems, solutions for dismantling of nuclear facilities and nuclear waste management, as well as the fight against cancer by the production of medical radioisotopes, pre-clinical research as well as pilot production of new radiopharmaceuticals.
In 2011 he was appointed as the R&D program manager of the MYRRHA project
MYRRHA is the world’s first large scale Accelerator Driven System project at power levels scalable to industrial systems. It consists of a subcritical nuclear reactor driven by a high power linear accelerator. With the subcritical concentration of fission material, the nuclear reaction is sustained by the particle accelerator only. MYRRHA offers unparalleled research opportunities in spent nuclear fuel, nuclear medicine and fundamental and applied physics. In the frame of the MYRRHA project, he coordinated the European project MAXSIMA project from 2012 to 2018 contributing to the safety assessment of MYRRHA.
Since 2018 and to date, he has been appointed as the Director of the Innovative Nuclear Systems Institute of SCK CEN.
Since 2020, he is the vice chair of the European Sustainable Nuclear Industrial Initiative (ESNII). The ESNII initiative gathers European teams around technologies and demonstration projects to pursue R&D&I on technologies based on fast neutron spectrum and closed fuel cycles allowing competitive and sustainable energy production, better use of the uranium resources as well as waste minimization. ESNII is one of the 3 pillars of the Sustainable Nuclear Energy Technology Platform (SNETP) to support and promote the safe, reliable and efficient operation of civil nuclear systems. The international membership base of the platform includes industrial actors, research and development organizations, academia, technical and safety organizations, SMEs as well as non-governmental bodies.
At the request of the Belgian government, he contributed in 2022 to a technological evaluation of the SMR types under development. The main objective of this work is to evaluate the relative benefits and limitations of different SMR technologies, specifically in the context of a postulated deployment of SMRs for the production of electricity and hydrogen in Belgium.
Jonathan Grams holds master’s degrees in the history of nuclear technologies and historic preservation from the University of Colorado. He currently works at Idaho National Laboratory both as an architectural historian for the Cultural Resources Management Office and as a researcher focusing on technology transfer from previous advanced non-LWR reactor programs to current Gen IV efforts.
Jonathan has 30+ years of research and hands-on experience in the areas of aerospace and marine propulsion systems, naval architecture, aerodynamics, high performance aircraft, naval weapons systems and pre-LTBT (Limited Test Ban Treaty) nuclear weapons testing. In 2021 he published the results of a 10-year investigation into an advanced thermonuclear device based directly on nascent ICF (Inertial Confinement Fusion) research and tested in 1962 which demonstrated a 1000-fold gain in fusion energy output vs input. Published in MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Press’ Journal of Cold War Studies, this research was the first of its kind on a significant but elusive subject.
Jonathan’s current research reflects a strong desire to incorporate technologies developed and lessons learned from a period in history when funding and testing scope for advanced nuclear was effectively unlimited and which resulted in operational hardware that matched (and in some cases exceeded) the performance levels envisioned for Gen IV reactors.
Dawn M. Scates, Idaho National Labs
Gerhard Strydom, Idaho National Labs
Steve Aumeier, Idaho National Laboratory
Judges
Paul Kjellander served as President of the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (IPUC), having been appointed to four six-year terms beginning in 1999. He was the longest serving President of the IPUC. He recently retired from state service and now works as a consultant in the utility sector. His new work through the Idaho National Lab focuses on advanced energy resource development. Kjellander also serves as a senior advisor with Public Utilities Fortnightly.
As a commissioner, Kjellander was a member of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ (NARUC) board of directors and executive committee, Kjellander was elected to serve as President of the association in 2020. As NARUC president he established a multiyear conference theme for the association and worked with commissioners at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to create the Joint Federal-State Task Force on Electric Transmission.
During his tenure at NARUC, Kjellander served on NARUC’s Committee on Consumer Affairs, the Electricity Committee, and was the past Chair of the Committee on Telecommunications. He also was a member of the Subcommittee on Regulatory and Industry Diversity and the Subcommittee on Education and Research.
Kjellander also served as President of the National Council on Electricity Policy, which is funded by the US Department of Energy and managed by NARUC. He was also a board member of the Financial Research Institute and the New Mexico State University’s Current Issues Advisory Board. Other service included membership on the Federal Communications Commission’s 706 Joint Board, the North American Numbering Council, and the Advisory Council of the Electric Power Research Institute. Additionally, he served as chairman of the FCC’s Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations.
Kjellander’s regulatory service was briefly interrupted in 2007 when Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter tasked him with creating Idaho’s Office of Energy Resources (OER). This cabinet level position played a significant role in establishing the state’s energy policy direction.
During his time at OER, which is now known as the Office of Energy and Mineral Resources, Kjellander created an aggressive energy efficiency program funded through the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Kjellander established the Idaho Strategic Energy Alliance and remained a member of that group until his retirement from state service. He also served on the board of the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO).
Before joining the commission in 1999, Kjellander was elected to three terms in the Idaho House of Representatives, where he served from 1994-1999. As a legislator, Kjellander served on multiple committees, including House State Affairs, Judiciary and Rules, Ways and Means, Local Government, and Transportation. During his final term in office, Kjellander was elected to leadership as Chairman of the House Majority Caucus.
Prior to his legislative service, Kjellander was director of Boise State University’s College of Applied Technology Distance Learning, where he earned tenured faculty status and served in various positions including program head of broadcast technology, station manager of BSU Radio Network, director of the Special Projects Unit for BSU Radio and as BSU Radio’s director of News and Public Affairs. As a broadcast journalist, Kjellander received over 30 professional awards for his reporting. He also contributed reports to multiple regional and nationally distributed programs.
Kjellander is also a painter who’s work has appeared on magazine and book covers. Most recently he illustrated a book titled “Heroes of the Storms”. His paintings also hang in private collections and several pieces from his series “The Legislature at Work” can be found in the Idaho State House.
Kjellander earned undergraduate degrees in communications, psychology, and art from Muskingum University in Ohio, and earned a master’s degree in telecommunications from Ohio University.
Kjellander and his wife Radelle have three children…a daughter Allison who practices law in Boise and twin sons Skyler and Justus who completed their MBAs and work in Salt Lake City.
Dr. Abdalla Abou-Jaoude, is an R&D Staff Scientist in the Advanced Reactor Technology Department of Idaho National Laboratory (INL). He is leading multiple effort at the lab across six DOE-sponsored programs. This includes the Virtual Test Bed (VTB) project, confirmatory analysis for the MCRE demonstration, the BlueCRAB initiative for NEAMS, modeling and simulation for the MSR campaign, a first-of-a-kind fueled salt irradiation experiment, and nuclear technoeconomics modeling. He is a PhD graduate from Georgia Tech and previously was the INL Deboisblanc Distinguished Postdoctoral Associate.
Dr. Andrea Jokisaari is a computational materials scientist in the Irradiated Fuels and Materials Department of Idaho National Laboratory. Since 2021, she joined the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies program within the Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy. In AMMT, she is the Technical Area Lead for Environmental Effects and spearheads the program’s Capability and Transformative Research activities. Prior to joining INL in 2018, she earned her Ph.D and M.S.E. in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan and her B.S. in Ceramics and Materials Engineering at Clemson University. Her research interests focus on advancing the state of the art in predicting materials performance evolution under irradiation using physics-based modeling, machine learning, and advanced experimental techniques, especially for nuclear fuels and structural materials.
Dr Antonella di Trapani is Senior Analyst at the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) where she is leading the Nuclear Education, Skills and Technology (NEST) Framework, the Global Forum on nuclear education, science, technology, and policy and the Nuclear Knowledge Management activities. She has senior level experience in science management, policy, communication and international co-operation gained by working in several international organisations.
Before joining the OECD NEA in July 2018, she was Team Leader for Science Policy Advice within the European Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism. Prior to that, she has held several positions as Programme Manager and Head of International Cooperation, at the G20 Wheat Initiative, European Commission European Research Council and European Science Foundation, managing large scale collaborative projects, capacity building networks and the largest grants in Europe. In addition, she also worked for the private sector as Research Scientist in Johnson Matthey Technology Centre.
She was awarded two EC Marie Curie Fellowships to carry out her PhD and PostDoc, and she was Chair of the Marie Curie Fellows Association, the largest Fellows’ network in Europe. She also founded and chaired the Women in Science Working Group. She is also co-founder and former Vice-Chair of the Gender in Science for Mobile Scientists of the Marie Curie Alumni Association.
Dr di Trapani is an Italian national and holds a MSc in Chemistry from the University of Palermo (Italy) during which she was awarded an Erasmus Fellowship at University College London (UK), a PhD in Chemistry and a PostGraduate Diploma in Quality Improvement from Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), a MSc in Science Communication and Journalism from University of Ferrara (Italy), and a PostGraduate Diploma in International Development from London School of Economics and Social Sciences (UK).
Mentors
Dr. Mark Anderson is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the University of Wisconsin’s Thermal Hydraulic Laboratory. He also manages the UW–Mmadison Tantalus facility in Stoughton WI. Dr. Anderson studies both the physics, thermal hydraulic performance and material corrosion issues of several different fluids (salts, liquid metals, SCW, S-Co2). He is also currently the U.S. representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the coordinated research project on supercritical fluids and has active research on the SCO2 Brayton cycle for nuclear, solar and fossil advanced power generation. He has been awarded several patents and has published over 150 papers in various areas related to physics, energy science, production and utilization.
Margot Hurlbert has a B. Admin. (Great Distinction) from the University of Regina (1985), an LL.B. (Osgoode) (1987), an LL.M. (Osgoode) (2005) in Constitutional Law with a focus on energy, natural resource, indigenous and environmental issues, and a Ph.D. (University of Amsterdam) in Social and Behaviour Sciences with a thesis “Adaptive Governance of Disaster: Drought and Flood in Rural Areas” published by Springer. Before entering academia Margot was the Assistant General Counsel of the Legal Department at SaskPower.
Her research interests focus on energy, climate change, agriculture, and water. Margot has lead and participated in many SSHRC, NSERC and IDRC research projects, serves on the editorial boards of international journals, is the Lead of the Science, Technology and Innovation Research Cluster at Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy in Regina. Margot is Coordinating Lead Author of a chapter of the Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Land and Climate (2019) and a Review Editor for AR6. Margot sits on Future Earth’s Earth Commission Working Group on ‘Transformations’, and is a Scientific Coordinator, Task Force on Earth System Law and a Senior Research Fellow of the Earth Systems Governance Project (Future Earth), Delft, the Netherlands.
Gaston Meskens holds master degrees in theoretical physics and nuclear engineering from the University of Ghent (Belgium). He works part-time with the Science and Technology Studies group of the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK•CEN and with the Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of the University of Ghent.
He has twenty+ years of experience in participative and transdisciplinary research related to the ethics of governance of issues such as sustainable development, energy, climate change and radioactive waste management and with the policy processes of the UNFCCC, UNCSD, UN-NPT, and of the research-related activities of the EC.
Since 2006, he is member of the steering committee of the Constituency of Research-oriented Independent NGOs towards the UNFCCC and was chair of the constituency from 2016 to 2018.
In the previous years, he also participated as invited expert in Belgian parliamentary and public hearings on the ethics of risk-inherent technology governance, in several Technical Committees of the IAEA and of the OECD and in UN missions in the frame of sustainable development. At SCK•CEN Gaston Meskens is now working as researcher, writer, lecturer and mediator of dialogue on ethics in relation to science, technology and democratic decision making.
Stylianos Chatzidakis is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nuclear Engineering at Purdue University. He also serves as Associate Reactor Director for PUR-1 and Director of Radiation Laboratories. Prior to joining Purdue, he was R&D Staff and Weinberg Distinguished Fellow at ORNL.
Dr. Chatzidakis received his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from Purdue University, his M.Sc. in Energy Physics from the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG) in France and his Diploma in Mechanical Engineering (5-year program) from the National Technical University of Athens. Dr. Chatzidakis is leading research in the fields of muon imaging, algorithm development for signal encryption, quantum-based cybersecurity for advanced reactors, development of remote sensing capabilities using Aerosol Jet Printing for nuclear applications, and anomaly detection using intelligent algorithms, particle transport, and Monte Carlo simulations. He holds a Reactor Operator License from the NRC.
He is one of the developers of the Tube Acoustic and Pressure measurement System (TAPS) and the Mobile Examination and Remediation Facility (MERF). Dr. Chatzidakis is a recipient of several research and teaching awards including the Weinberg Distinguished Fellowship at ORNL, the Roy G. Post Foundation Scholarship, the Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship, and the Outstanding Engineering Teacher Award. He has several Best Paper Awards and Best Poster Awards.
With over 25 years of experience, Marcio Paes Barreto is an experienced agile leader who has worked in a variety of areas, including program management, leadership development, business development, marketing, and communications. Currently, he holds the position of Director of Industrial Development at the Wyoming Energy Authority, where he leads the development of both emerging and legacy energy industries.
Throughout his career, Marcio has established himself as a thought leader in digital technologies, program management, and leadership development. He has a successful track record of leading cross-functional teams and creating a collaborative work environment to achieve project outcomes. Before his work in the non-governmental and governmental sectors, Marcio held leadership positions at various prominent information technology companies. In these roles, he drove business growth, developed new services, and expanded their client base.
Marcio’s expertise and dedication to his work have been recognized with numerous awards and accolades. Additionally, he is a dedicated educator, sharing his knowledge and expertise with the next generation of leaders in his field. With a background in industrial engineering, he considers himself a student of growth and development topics.
Outside of work, Marcio enjoys hunting, backcountry traveling, and exploring new cultures. He lives in Laramie, Wyoming, with his wife and two children. For more information, please refer to his LinkedIn profile.
Ms. Christi Bell is Associate Vice Chancellor and Executive Director of the University of Alaska Anchorage, Business Enterprise Institute. Bell has provided consulting and technical assistance to community-based and private-sector organizations throughout Alaska for nearly 30 years. Through her current position, she provides leadership to a team of 70+ professionals, faculty, and students and a variety of economic development programs, including the UA Center for Economic Development, the Alaska Small Business Development Center, the Alaska Procurement Technical Center, the Alaska Manufacturing Extension Partnership, the Alaska Cooperative Development Center, as well as the Applied Environmental Research Center and Center for Strategic Partnerships and Research.
Bell holds a CEcD (Certificate in Economic Development) from the International Economic Development Council, an MBTI certificate, a Greenbelt, as well as a Master of Business degree and a Master of Science degree in Resource Management, both from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Bell and her husband have two fantastic boys, both on engineering paths. The family loves to backcountry hike and hang out in the great Alaskan outdoors. Many adventures are had with Amber (Golden Doodle) and Rubi (Poodle).
Zahra Mohaghegh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). She is the director of the Socio-Technical Risk Analysis (SoTeRiA) Research Laboratory at UIUC, advancing risk science and applications for the safety of complex technological systems such as commercial nuclear power plants and advanced reactors. Mohaghegh has published widely on probabilistic risk assessment, probabilistic physics of failure analysis, human-system reliability modeling, risk-informed decision making, and uncertainty analysis.
Yassin Hassan is University Distinguished Professor, Regents Professor and the L.F. Peterson ’36 Chair II in Engineering. He is a professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and the J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University. He is the Director of the Center for Advanced Small Modular and Microreactors (CASMR).
Prior to joining Texas A&M September 1986, he worked for seven years at Nuclear Power Division, Babcock & Wilcox Company, Lynchburg, Virginia. His research is in computational and experimental thermal hydraulics and advanced nuclear reactors. He has performed experimental and computational studies of advanced reactors (gas cooled reactors, liquid metal, molten salt, heat pipe and SMR and microreactors)
He received his master’s and doctorate in nuclear in nuclear engineering from the University of Illinois and a master’s in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia.
Megan Moore is an Operations Research Analyst at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, based on Chalk River, Ontario, Canada. Megan is an expert in nuclear economics, and has developed economic models to assess traditional reactors, Generation IV reactors, and small module reactors (SMRs), as well as key components such as advanced fuel cycles. She currently serves as a co-chair of the Generation IV International Forum Economic and Modelling Working Group. Megan has also performed several feasibility studies to understand the system level impacts of implementing various technology solutions. Most recently, she as lead a team at CNL in the development of the hybrid energy system optimization (HESO) model, a powerful tool that can be used to gain valuable insight into possible energy transition scenarios in support of Canada’s clean energy targets.
Pavel V. Tsvetkov, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, Texas A&M University. Dr. Tsvetkov have been teaching a broad range of graduate and undergraduate courses in the areas of reactor and system design and reactor physics. Dr. Tsvetkov’s research program is focused on novel energy systems meeting global growing needs in sustainable resources, particularly looking for environmentally benign sustainable energy solutions. The project portfolio includes direct energy conversion, waste management efforts to dramatically reduce nuclear waste, novel reactor designs, used fuel options, and instrumentation and control efforts to develop intelligent autonomous systems, remote sensing and data science and engineering for nuclear security applications, and nuclear criticality safety. Dr. Tsvetkov is a member of ANS, ASME, ASEE, AIChE, ACE, INMM, Alpha Nu Sigma and Phi Kappa Phi. He published over 300 papers in peer journals, conference proceedings and reports. He has been serving as an editor and major contributor for 14 books on energy, environment and nuclear energy. Dr. Tsvetkov has 4 patents on micro reactor designs.
Dr. Eva Davidson is an R&D Staff member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). She’s currently the interim group leader for the Research and Test Reactor Physics Group in the Nuclear Energy and Fuel Cycle Division at ORNL. Eva’s research interests cover a wide range of topics including fuel cycle modeling and analysis, reactor physics analysis and reactor design, and Monte Carlo, deterministic and hybrid (Mote Carlo/deterministic) radiation transport models. She has contributed to multiple projects performing reactor physics, fuel cycle, and radiation shielding simulations for the Systems Analysis and Integration Campaign, Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulations, High Flux Isotope Reactor HEU to LEU conversion fuel design analyses to name a few. Eva received her PhD and MS in Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences from the University of Michigan and her B.Eng in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.
Dr. Katarzyna (Kate) Borowiec is a R&D Associate Staff Member – System and Data Analytics Engineer in the Nuclear Energy and Fuel Cycle Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). She received her PhD (2021) and MS (2017) in Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has extensive experience with thermal-hydraulics modeling of the nuclear reactor systems. She was involved in many projects in the area of validation and verification, uncertainty quantification and sensitivity analysis, advancing development of statistical methods for nuclear reactor safety applications. Her research takes advantage of reduced order modeling, data analysis, machine learning and aims at combining data-driven approaches with physics-based modeling. Her research interests include software development, high-performance computing, multiphysics, computational fluid dynamics, machine learning and data-driven modeling approaches.
In her current position, Katarzyna is supporting Involute Reactor CFD Group working in modeling of the HFIR reactor with COMSOL Multiphysics software. She is involved in the development of Fusion Energy Reactor Models Integrator (FERMI) and Advanced Tokamak Modeling Environment (AToM). She utilizes her skills in artificial intelligence and machine learning in Decision and Control of Complex Systems project and develops new data-driven models for MHD flows as a part of VERTEX project.
Dr. Xingang Zhao is an R&D Associate Staff member in the Nuclear Energy and Fuel Cycle Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in nuclear science and engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests span multiple disciplines of nuclear energy systems—with emphasis on thermal hydraulics, safety analysis, and instrumentation & control—and their intersections with artificial intelligence and decision science. He has been a major contributor to a diverse portfolio of internal and external (US Department of Energy, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission) research projects that advance the state of the art of modeling & simulation and digital engineering for applications in both legacy fleet and next-generation reactors.
Dr. Qin is a Staff Researcher in the Department of Advanced Reactor Technology and Design at INL. Before joining INL, he earned his Ph.D. degree in Nuclear Engineering from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2020. He also received two Bachelor’s degrees in both Nuclear Engineering and Mechanical Engineering from University of Michigan and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2015.
His current work scopes include performing research on nuclear reactor thermal-hydraulics systems, proposing novel design of energy storage systems, and investigating development of advanced reactors concepts (gas-cooled, molten-salt-cooled, liquid-metal-cooled, and micro-reactors). Dr. Qin’s research at INL is aimed to support several U.S. DOE Programs including: Microreactor Program (MRP), Advanced Reactor Technologies -Gas Cooled Reactors (ART-GCR), Integrated Energy Systems (IES), and Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) Program.
Chandu Bolisetti is a Scientist in the Advanced Reactor Technology and Design department at Idaho National Laboratory. His research focuses on earthquake safety of nuclear power plants and other critical infrastructure including advanced modeling and simulation, hazard and risk assessment, and design optimization. He also focuses on reducing the deployment risk of advanced reactors and microreactors through technoeconomics analyses, i.e., development of cost estimation tools and identification of cost barriers, identifying and promoting cost reduction technologies, and mass production of microreactors. Dr. Bolisetti joined INL as a seismic postdoctoral research associate in November 2014. Dr. Bolisetti received a Ph.D. in structural and earthquake engineering from the University at Buffalo, SUNY, in 2014. He holds a master’s degree in civil engineering from University at Buffalo, and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, which he received in 2008.
Dr. Ayman Mahmoud is a Professional Engineer/Thermalhydraulic Analyst at CNL and an Adjunct Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University (previously Ryerson University). Dr. Mahmoud is a technical task lead for various Federal Nuclear Science and Technology (FNST) projects and commercial projects at CNL that involve Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems, SMRs deployment, and SMRs for green mining projects. Prior to joining CNL, he was a technical lead for an underground energy storage system project to develop an innovative energy storage system solution for the Ontario residential sector to improve system longevity and feasibility in Canadian climates. Dr. Mahmoud has a patent in energy storage pile design and published more than 29 peer-reviewed journal articles. Also, he designed and contributed to over 10 experimental setups and prototypes to examine various innovative heat transfer techniques and sustainable energy systems.
Dr. Pronnapa Sanongboon heads the Operations Research section in the Computational Techniques branch at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) where she conducts research and studies to support the Federal Nuclear Science and Technology program and commercial projects. She is the principal investigator of the Technical and Economic Study of Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems for Sustainable Development project. She has largely contributed to the development of CNL’s Hybrid Energy System Optimization (HESO) model, a techno-economic assessment tool. Pronnapa has represented Canada in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) technical meetings on energy modelling tools for sustainable energy development and energy systems. Currently, her research focuses on the improvement and applications of the HESO model along with other energy system tools to investigate the roles of nuclear energy in low-carbon energy systems beyond power generation. Dr. Sanongboon received her Ph.D. in Engineering with core expertise in optimization and artificial neural networks.
Madalena completed her Ph.D. in Chemistry at The University of Western Ontario (2019) where she also received her Bachelor of Science in 2014. Her graduate research on the application of synchrotron radiation techniques to the examination of daguerreotypes (19th century photographs) led her to complete a fellowship at the Canadian Photography Institute (CPI) at the National Gallery of Canada in 2017. She joined the Advanced Fuels and Reactor Physics Branch at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories as a research scientist in 2019. Her work has included leading the procurement and commissioning of an X-ray computed tomography instrument, and contributing to a range of projects including the fuel fabrication campaign for the Royal Military College SLOWPOKE refuel, and efforts related to Global First Power.
Chuk heads a Section at CNL that investigates postulated high temperature and pressure scenarios in current and advanced nuclear reactors. He has led several projects at CNL providing support to the programs from a technical stand point, including investigation pertaining to CANDU reactors, the Generation-IV International Forum (GIF) fleet of reactor designs, and CNL’s Small Modular Reactor (SMR) initiatives. He is a Canadian representative in the Program Management Board for Thermal-Hydraulics and Safety of the GIF System Arrangement. He has a diverse range of technical expertise in flow and heat transfer analyses including computational fluid dynamics assessments of complex geometrical flow paths and performing a range of high temperature and pressure heat transfer and fluid flow experiments. He has lead efforts in developing several thermal-hydraulic experimental and assessment capabilities and facilities at CNL to investigate novel SMR safety systems such as heat pipes, natural circulation of molten salts, and other passive systems.
Dr. Eric D. Jia is a research scientist and chemical engineer with a strong background in gas/solids fluidization, multiphase heat and mass transfer, advanced instrumentation, and computational modeling. His research experience includes aerosol behavior and reactor thermal-hydraulics, contributing to the safety and efficiency of nuclear reactors.
Dr. Jia holds a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of British Columbia, with a thesis focused on drying, heat, and mass transfer in a pulsed fluidized bed of biomass. He has since worked as a Reactor Safety Scientist at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, a Research Scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia.
In his various research roles, Dr. Jia has executed projects sponsored by the CANDU Owners Group, contributed to the development of fluidized bed biomass gasification processes, and participated in the design and prototype development of high-efficiency fluidized bed heat exchangers. He is committed to fostering collaboration and open communication among colleagues and team members.
Dr. Jia actively participates in international forums, sharing insights and expertise at events such as the Task Force on Non-Electric Applications of Nuclear Heat and the Particle Technology Forum hosted by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. As a proponent of the scientific method, Dr. Jia focuses on designing rigorous experiments and scaling up findings to ensure accurate replication in larger systems.
Dr. Ahmed Amin Abdelhameed is a nuclear engineer with the nuclear science and engineering (NSE) division at Argonne National Lab (ANL) in the USA. Dr. Ahmed’s research interests include designing and analyzing innovative technologies for nuclear fission reactors with a specific focus on neutronics and dynamic multi-physics modeling and analysis. Dr. Ahmed is currently leading NEAMS contribution to SEFOR benchmark joint validation activity with ART FRP, and supporting high-fidelity Multiphysics analyses of microreactors, SMRs, and SFRs under the DOE-NE NEAMS program. Dr. Ahmed is also supporting Westinghouse with modeling of their Lead-cooled Fast Reactor, and ANL with several other projects such as Multiphysics modeling of MSRs. Previously, Dr. Ahmed worked with the center of autonomous SMR Research (CASMRR) at KAIST, South Korea where he pioneered the so-called ‘passively autonomous operation’ of a soluble-boron-free SMR and developed software for 3-D dynamic Multiphysics modeling and a control logic. Dr. Ahmed is the first author of over twenty peer-reviewed journals and international conferences, and is a co-author of numerous other publications. In 2019, he received the ATOM award from CASMRR at KAIST, South Korea.
Dr. Elizabeth Worsham is a Systems Integration Engineer at Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Her work includes modeling and analysis of nuclear heat and power systems and economic analysis of power and product markets. Elizabeth currently leads the Nuclear-Driven Chemical Conversion Processes case study at INL to analyze pathways to convert coal to non-fuel products, and to convert captured CO2 to carbon- and hydrogen-based chemicals. Elizabeth is also involved in the lab’s efforts to support decarbonization in the industrial heat and power sector through integration of advanced reactors and SMRs. In addition, Dr. Worsham supports international collaborations through the Department of State’s Foundational Infrastructure for the Responsible use of SMR Technology (FIRST) as a subject matter expert on non-electric applications for nuclear power. Elizabeth received her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (2017) and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University (2020).
Levi Larsen, Idaho National Labs
Jason Hansen, Idaho National Labs