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Division Spotlight
Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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June 2024
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Fusion Science and Technology
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DEI webinar highlights parents and caregivers in nuclear
The Diversity and Inclusion in ANS Committee on May 9 hosted a webinar titled “Our nuclear family: Empowering parents and caregivers in the nuclear industry.” The speakers, who are parents and caregivers as well as nuclear industry professionals, highlighted how the nuclear industry supports caregivers facing life transitions or focusing on parental responsibilities. They also discussed challenges and areas where the industry has room for improvement in supporting caregivers. Some of the panelists have made their own contributions to fostering inclusiveness for caregivers in the industry.
The full webinar is available for anyone to view online at ans.org/webinars/view-family24/.
The Speakers: Speakers for the session included Marsha McDaniel, director of international engagement at Idaho National Laboratory; Cheryl O’Brien, principal and founder of Vision for Inclusive Engineering Workforce, Inc.; Todd Palmer, professor of nuclear engineering at Oregon State University; and Kristin Zaitz, cofounder of Mothers for Nuclear. Ira Strong of INL moderated the session.
Before the webinar, ANS members were invited to participate in a caregiver survey that included questions about their own situations. Highlights from the survey can be viewed here.
Caregiver challenges: O’Brien said, “When people have their first child, 43 percent [of women in STEM fields] will not maintain at full time; 20 percent of new fathers will also either go part time or find another career.” She added that “If you stay part time even though it may fit your needs for an amount of time, you stay in that death spiral where you don’t get the meaty assignments, the ones [that] will travel; you don’t get on the committees. . . . It’s a perception.”
A mother of three, McDaniel spoke about navigating the challenges of caring for her children and eldercare. “Thousands of people in this industry are dealing with similar challenges. Just creating spaces where we can talk—that alone helps.”
Fostering inclusiveness: McDaniel introduced an emergency daycare program at INL, having found it difficult to take time off work when her childcare was unavailable. “Now we have this emergency backup daycare program that’s available for all ages from six weeks old up until school-age children. I just used the program about a month ago.” Strong chimed in that she had also used the program.
Zaitz mentioned the other side of the coin: “There are a lot of things that nuclear does not do well [around caregivers]. But I have a lot of hope that the questioning attitude and tenacity of continuous improvement that’s so widespread in the nuclear industry is going to move us toward making nuclear a leader in this space.”
Zaitz, who has worked at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant for over two decades, started Mothers for Nuclear in 2016 alongside coworker and friend Heather Hoff. She spoke about the moment she realized there was little support for new parents at her job and how she took matters into her own hands.
“I was the first engineer [in her coworkers’ memory] who had a baby at work. . . . They were so supportive but just didn’t know how to be supportive because it wasn’t a common thing,” Zaitz said. “There were two other women at the plant who had had children, and when I asked them about their experience, it was kind of a horror story.” Zaitz teamed up with other women, human resources, and the local breastfeeding coalition, “and we got a great program in place.” That policy is still in place for the whole company.
“We ended up winning an award from the state of California on our policy and our accommodations for breastfeeding mothers,” Zaitz added.
Overcoming biases: The panelists discussed ways that caregivers must overcome either implicit or explicit biases in the workplace and ways that organizations can ensure that biases do not affect workers. A major bias the speakers pointed out was the assumption that caregivers are less available to perform well in the workforce.
“While a lot of us at some point are going to need accommodations, it doesn’t mean we’re not engaged in our jobs or that nuclear is not right for us,” said Zaitz. “It means that we all have to be a little bit flexible to keep that great talent in the pipeline and make sure we’re not overlooking great talent because of our assumptions about how they might contribute.”
Palmer added, “The key is you have to have people in these rooms who are aware of and looking for those sorts of biases and calling them out when they come up. . . . We’re after an inclusive community that supports all our employees, and we do it in hiring, promotion, and advancement. . . . It’s these things that are really difficult to change because they are baked in and you don’t see them. You really need staunch advocates."
Educator Training
March 7, 2024|5:00–6:00PM (6:00–7:00PM EST)
Available to All Users
Comet isn’t just one of Santa’s reindeer. To nuclear scientists, Comet—along with Planet, Flat-top, and Godiva IV—is a critical assembly, a type of reactor essential in conducting experiments using fissionable materials. Learn how critical and sub-critical assemblies are used in nuclear experiments in this special webinar for K-12 educators.
A Q&A session will follow their presentation, so send your and your students’ questions to webinars@ans.org.
Panelists
David AmesDOE NSCP Sandia Site ManagerSandia National Laboratory
Kelsey AmundsonResearch & Development EngineerLos Alamos National Laboratory
Jesse NorrisNuclear Criticality Safety EngineerLawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Moderator
Evan GonzalezComputational PhysicistLawrence Livermore National Laboratory
BIOS
David Ames
David received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2006 and 2010. His focus was on the design and performance of advanced reactors and fuel cycles utilizing uncertainty quantification and multi-objective optimization techniques. David started at Sandia in 2010 and supported the NASA Fission Surface Power project and other advanced nuclear fuel cycle projects. In 2017, David joined the critical experiments team and authored two benchmark evaluations designed and performed at Sandia. He also supports the Sandia NCS Program as a qualified NCS Engineer and Deputy Program Lead. David recently took over the role of the DOE NSCP Sandia Site Manager.
Jesse Norris
Jesse is a Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he has worked since 2017. The focus of his work is on experiment design, execution, and benchmarking for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Nuclear Criticality Safety Program. Most recently, this includes two critical experiments within the Thermal and Epithermal eXperiments (TEX) Program utilizing Highly Enriched Uranium (TEX-HEU) and Hafnium (TEX-Hf). Jesse has a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M University and an M.Eng. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Kelsey Amundson
Kelsey earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016 and a Master of Engineering degree in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California-Berkeley in 2019. Kelsey began working in Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Advanced Nuclear Technology group in June 2020 as a research & development engineer. Her team operates the critical assemblies at the National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC) and she is a crew member on all four assemblies. Before working at Los Alamos National Laboratory she worked at the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. She is an active member of the American Nuclear Society, serving as the Immediate-Chair of the Young Members Group, and as a member of the American Nuclear Society Board of Directors, and serves on two working groups for ANSI/ANS 8 series standards (8.19 and 8.20).
Evan Gonzalez
Evan is a computational physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he writes code to simulate how radiation interacts with matter. He completed his undergraduate degree at Texas A&M University in 2017 and his graduate degrees at the University of Michigan in 2023, all in nuclear engineering. Evan is co-chair of the ANS Young Members Group Program Committee.
This webinar is presented by ANS in partnership with the Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy.