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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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!
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Feb 2025
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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.
Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS-2022) Plenary SPeaker
Associate Administrator for Technology, Policy, and Strategy
NASA
As the associate administrator for technology, policy, and strategy within the office of the NASA Administrator, Bhavya Lal is responsible for providing evidence-driven advice to NASA leadership on internal and external policy issues, strategic planning, and technology investments. She also provides executive leadership and direction to the newly created Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy within the office of the administrator. Dr. Lal is currently the acting chief technologist of NASA, the first woman to hold the position in NASA’s 60+ year history.
Prior to her current role and in the first 100 days of the Biden Administration, she was the Acting Chief of Staff at NASA, and directed the agency’s transition under the administration of President Biden. Before arriving at NASA, she had served as a member of the Presidential Transition Agency Review Teams for both NASA and the Department of Defense. For 15 years prior to that, Dr. Lal led strategy, technology assessment, and policy studies and analyses at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) for government sponsors including the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the National Space Council, NASA, Department of Defense, and other Federal Departments and Agencies. Before coming to IDA, she was the Director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Studies at Abt Associates, a global policy research and consulting firm based in Cambridge MA. Dr. Lal’s analyses have been at the center of almost all space-relevant polices for the last decade. For her many contributions to the space community, she was nominated and selected to be a Corresponding Member of the International Academy of Astronautics.
Dr. Lal is an active member of the space technology and policy community, having chaired, co-chaired or served on five high-impact National Academy of Science (NAS) ad hoc committees. She served two consecutive terms on the NOAA Federal Advisory Committee on Commercial Remote Sensing (ACCRES), was an External Council Member of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program, and selected to join the NASA Technology, Innovation and Engineering Advisory Committee (NAC/TIE). She co-founded and was co-chair of the policy track of the American Nuclear Society’s annual conference on Nuclear and Emerging Technologies in Space (NETS), and co-organized a seminar series on space history and policy with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Dr. Lal holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a second master’s from MIT’s Technology and Policy Program, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Public Administration from George Washington University. She is a member of both the nuclear engineering and public policy and public administration honor societies and has published more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.
Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Last modified April 6, 2022, 10:37am EDT
