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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!
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 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
Nancy J. Balkus, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Infrastructure, Energy and Environment, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Arlington, Virginia. She provides executive leadership on all matters pertaining to formulation, review and execution of plans, policies, programs and budgets for Air Force built and natural infrastructure, environmental, and installation energy. These include facility management, military construction, utilities privatization, energy security, contingency energy, and environmental compliance and restoration.
Ms. Balkus graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy. She has served in a variety of positions at the squadron, base, forward operating agency, major command and headquarters level in the contiguous United States and overseas. She is a registered professional engineer in the state of Texas. Her joint experience includes the Joint Staff Strategic Plans and Policy Assistant Deputy Director for Strategic Stability where she formulated Joint Staff positions and recommendations regarding strategic deterrence, nuclear policy, combating weapons of mass destruction and international arms control agreements. As the Assistant Deputy Director for Global Security Affairs/Partnership Strategy, she provided leadership for building national security partnerships and partner capacity for U.S. missions in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya; reviewed and oversaw all Department of Defense security cooperation plans, authorities and budgets; directed Joint Staff engagement for all international security assistance programs; and provided oversight for the Chairman’s mission to the United Nations in New York.
Prior to her current assignment, Ms. Balkus served as the Deputy Director for Civil Engineers, Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Engineering and Force Protection at Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Pentagon, Arlington, VA. As a civil engineer she has served as the Programs Division Deputy Chief in the Office of the Civil Engineer at Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Deputy Base Civil Engineer at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, Deputy Chief of Readiness at Headquarters Air Combat Command, Project Management Branch Chief for the Aviano 2000 Program Management Office, and multiple positions at the Air Force Center for Engineering and Environment, Brooks AFB, Texas.
Last modified October 29, 2024, 9:49am EDT
