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Division Spotlight
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
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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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.
2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting Plenary Session Appearance
Dr. Steven Ashby has served as the Director of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) since April 2015. He is responsible for establishing the Laboratory's vision and setting its strategic direction. Under his leadership, PNNL's exceptional staff are advancing the frontiers of science and addressing complex challenges in energy, the environment, and national security. In particular, the Laboratory is providing national leadership in climate science, the power grid, nuclear nonproliferation, and environmental remediation.
Dr. Ashby previously served as PNNL's Deputy Director for Science and Technology, and was responsible for integrating PNNL's science and technology capabilities to meet national needs. Toward that goal, he led institutional strategic planning activities, stewarded an $80M discretionary research portfolio, and promoted Laboratory-wide efforts to elevate PNNL's standing in the broader scientific community. He also oversaw the Laboratory's technology commercialization, government relations, and research integrity functions. He served as a member of DOE's Laboratory Operations Board and was past chair of the DOE National Laboratory Chief Research Officers Working Group, which advises the National Laboratory Director's Council on scientific and programmatic issues.
Before joining PNNL in 2008, Dr. Ashby spent nearly 21 years at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), ultimately serving as Deputy Principal Associate Director for Science and Technology. He previously oversaw the activities of the 500-person Computing Applications and Research Department. Dr. Ashby was the founding director of LLNL's Center for Applied Scientific Computing, which was established in 1996 and has since matured into one of the world's premier scientific computing research organizations.
Dr. Ashby is widely recognized as a leader in computational science and has worked to advance it as a discipline throughout his career. His research focused on computational mathematics and scalable numerical algorithms; he is considered an expert in polynomial iterative methods and adaptive preconditioning techniques for large sparse linear systems. He has published numerous papers, and he has worked in a variety of areas, including large-scale scientific simulation (with application to electromagnetics and subsurface flow and transport), numerical linear algebra, massively parallel computing, and applied computer and data sciences. He remains active in the computational science community, including participation in the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
In 2013, Dr. Ashby was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in the mathematics section for "exceptional technical contributions and scientific leadership in applied mathematics and computational science, particularly the development of novel numerical methods and robust software for parallel computers, as well as for exemplary service to the field of computational science and engineering." He also was elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences in 2013.
He holds a B.S. in Mathematics/Computer Science from the University of Santa Clara. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Last modified November 4, 2020, 3:00pm EST
