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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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September 2025
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October 2025
Latest News
Empowering the next generation: ANS’s newest book focuses on careers in nuclear energy
A new career guide for the nuclear energy industry is now available: The Nuclear Empowered Workforce by Earnestine Johnson. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience across 16 nuclear facilities, Johnson offers a practical, insightful look into some of the many career paths available in commercial nuclear power. To mark the release, Johnson sat down with Nuclear News for a wide-ranging conversation about her career, her motivation for writing the book, and her advice for the next generation of nuclear professionals.
When Johnson began her career at engineering services company Stone & Webster, she entered a field still reeling from the effects of the Three Mile Island incident in 1979, nearly 15 years earlier. Her hiring cohort was the first group of new engineering graduates the company had brought on since TMI, a reflection of the industry-wide pause in nuclear construction. Her first long-term assignment—at the Millstone site in Waterford, Conn., helping resolve design issues stemming from TMI—marked the beginning of a long and varied career that spanned positions across the country.
International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management 2022 Speaker
Sam Brinton serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition (NE-8). In this role, Sam leads NE-8 and oversees its programs including the Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Science and Technology and the Office of Integrated Waste Management. NE-8 manages ongoing research and development related to long-term disposition of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Current priorities for Sam’s office include evaluating the feasibility of the direct disposal of dual-purpose casks; implementing high burn-up, large scale, long-term, dry storage cask research; and developing a consent-based siting process for consolidated, federal interim storage of spent nuclear fuel.
Sam brings a wealth of experience to this role, having previously served as the first employee of the country's first and only nuclear waste management and disposal start-up company, as well as leading one of the first major national consensus reports on the topic of consent-based siting at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Sam has also worked for think tanks such as the Breakthrough Institute, Clean Air Task Force, and Third Way. Sam holds dual graduate degrees in nuclear science and engineering as well as the Technology Policy Program from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and undergraduate degrees in mechanical engineering with a nuclear engineering focus and vocal music performance from Kansas State University. Sam is also a well-known advocate for LGBTQ youth and helped to secure protections against the dangerous and discredited practice of conversion therapy in more than half of the country. They identify as gender-fluid and use the pronouns they, them, and theirs.
After nearly a decade of experience in nuclear policy formation and implementation, Sam is excited to bring their knowledge and passion for nuclear waste as a self-proclaimed #NuclearNerd to the Department of Energy.
Last modified September 7, 2022, 8:06am MST
