ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
WIPP: Lessons in transportation safety
As part of a future consent-based approach by the federal government to site new deep geologic repositories for nuclear waste, local communities and states that are considering hosting such facilities are sure to have many questions. Currently, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is the only example of such a repository in operation, and it offers the opportunity for state and local officials to visit and judge for themselves the risks and benefits of hosting a similar facility. But its history can also provide lessons for these officials, particularly the political process leading up to the opening of WIPP, the safety of WIPP operations and transportation of waste from generator facilities to the site, and the economic impacts the project has had on the local area of Carlsbad, as well as the rest of the state of New Mexico.
Dr. Wilfrid Bennett Lewis was the seventh president of the American Nuclear Society and a charter member.
Dr. Wilfrid Lewis was born on June 24, 1908. He was a key figure in the development of nuclear power in Canada for nearly three decades, from the end of World War II until his retirement in 1973.
Born in England in 1908, Dr. Lewis earned a doctorate at Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in 1934 and continued his research on nuclear physics there until 1939. While there, he worked on alpha radioactivity with Lord Rutherford. He also worked on nuclear disintegration by particles accelerated by high voltage and on the construction and operation of the Cambridge cyclotron.
During the war, Dr. Lewis was on loan to the British Air Ministry, where he worked on the development of radar. At the end of the war, he became chief superintendent of the Telecommunications Research Establishment at Malvern.
A year later, he agreed to head Canada’s fledgling nuclear research facility at Chalk River, Ontario, where he worked for the next twenty-seven years. Dr. Lewis initially served as Director, Division of Atomic Energy Research, under the National Research Council of Canada. In 1952, upon the formation of Atomic Energy of Canada, he became Vice-President, Research and Development. In 1963, he was appointed Senior Vice President (Science) of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). He eventually retired from AECL in 1973, and was then appointed Distinguished Professor of Science, Queen’s University.
Convinced that nuclear energy could be used economically for generating electricity, Lewis fostered a collaboration between (AECL) and Ontario Hydro that led to the development of the CANDU reactor, considered his greatest technical achievement.
Dr. Lewis received his BA from Haileybury College in England in 1926. In 1934, he received both an MS and PhD from Cambridge University in Physics.
Dr. Lewis was the recipient of many awards during the course of his career, including Fellow of the Royal Society of London (1945), Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (1952), first recipient of the Outstanding Achievement Award of the Public Service of Canada (1966), the U.S. Atoms for Peace Award (1967), the Companion of the Order of Canada (1968), Honorary Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University (1971), Royal Medal of the Royal Society of London (1972), and U.S. Department of Energy Enrico Fermi Award (1981).
The W. Bennett Lewis Award was established by the Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences Division of the American Nuclear Society in honor of Dr. Lewis.
Dr. Wilfrid Bennett Lewis passed away on January 10, 1987.
