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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
13th Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control & Human-Machine Interface Technologies (NPIC&HMIT 2023)
Matt Dennis is a Data Scientist at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research. Matt joined the NRC’s Accident Analysis Branch in 2021 and leads the agency’s efforts in developing and implementing the NRC Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategic Plan. He also leads data science and AI research and development projects, software development, and training which aid regulatory enhancements and reactor safety research. Additionally, Matt supports the development and maintenance of the MELCOR Accident Consequence Code System (MACCS) suite of codes and conducts severe accident consequence analyses.
Prior to joining the NRC, Matt held positions at Northrop Grumman and Sandia National Laboratories. As a Senior Reliability Engineer with the Reliability Analysis Laboratory at Northrop Grumman’s Mission Systems Baltimore, he supported sustainment efforts for Global Hawk, Triton and Phoenix unmanned aircraft systems. As a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the Risk and Reliability Analysis department at Sandia National Laboratories, Matt led research and development projects supporting risk assessment and consequence analysis for new and operating nuclear reactors, as well as nuclear waste transportation. He has a B.S. and M.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Last modified May 9, 2023, 2:21pm EDT
