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Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Feb 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
February 2025
Latest News
Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
2024 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP) SPeaker
Chemist/Engineer
Nuclear Energy Agency
Steering Committee Bureau
Policy Director
Generation IV International Forum
Fiona Rayment enjoys a plural career covering nuclear advisory and non executive director roles and has dedicated decades to the nuclear sector with extensive strategic and operational experience. She is a chartered chemist and engineer with a PhD in chemistry from University of Strathclyde, Glasgow and a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Chemistry and of the UK Nuclear Institute. She has an MBA from Manchester Business School.
Fiona has recently served as a member of Euratom’s Science and Technology Committee, the Idaho National Laboratory's Nuclear Science and Technology Advisory Committee, the American Nuclear Society Board and was the first chair of the UK’s Nuclear Skills Strategy Group. Her current roles across the sector include being an advisor to the CEO of the National Nuclear Laboratory and the Office of Nuclear Regulation Chief Nuclear Inspector’s Independent Advisory Panel. Fiona is chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Energy Division at CEA - the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, a Non-Executive Member of the UK Space Agency Steering Board, Patron of Women in Nuclear UK and President Elect of the UK Nuclear Institute.
In addition Fiona is a vice chair of the Nuclear Energy Agency’s Steering Committee Bureau and Policy Director of the Generation IV International Forum.
Fiona has long advocated widening participation in science and engineering and champions our sector- leading approach to diversity and inclusion.
She was awarded an OBE in 2017 and the French Légion d’Honneur in 2020.
Last modified March 5, 2024, 10:36am PST