ANS News

Applications for the Society’s Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship will be closing soon. Congressional Fellows can directly contribute to the federal policymaking process, working in either a U.S. senator’s or representative’s personal office or with a congressional committee. They will be responsible for supplying Congress with their expertise in nuclear science and technology, having a hand in the creation of new laws while gaining a deeper understanding of the legislative process.

The American Nuclear Society’s Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS 2025) conference will take place May 4–8 in Huntsville, Ala. Registration for the meeting is now open, and the Huntsville Marriott at the Space & Rocket Center is also taking room reservations for attendees.

The American Nuclear Society’s Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division recently hosted a webinar on updating material control and accounting (MC&A) and security regulations for the evolving field of advanced reactors.

Go deeper: A recording of the full webinar “Updates on Advanced Nuclear Reactor Security and Material Control and Accounting,” which is available only to ANS members, can be viewed here.

The American Nuclear Society’s online programs continue to provide informative content for the wider nuclear community. Two recent webinars held at the end of January focused on intentional outreach activities and K-12 education: “Equitable Outreach: Now Comes the Hard Part” and “Quest for Gold: Exploring Nuclear Transmutation.”

A recent American Nuclear Society webinar tackled misconceptions about nuclear waste. Christopher Perfetti, an associate professor of nuclear engineering at the University of New Mexico, presented “The How, Why, and Where of Nuclear Waste,” the latest online event in ANS’s Educator Training offerings.

ANSI/ANS-8.26-2024, Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineer Training and Qualification Program, has been published and is available in the online ANS store. The standard, developed by the American Nuclear Society, received approval from the American National Standards Institute on November 21, 2024, and was published January 10, 2025.

This standard provides guidance for the content of training programs for nuclear criticality safety (NCS) specialists who are responsible for developing the analyses, controls, and safety documentation required for the safe handling of fissionable materials. This standard presents a matrix of training and qualification (T&Q) criteria based on education and experience combined with individual job functions and provides for qualification of experienced staff by documentation. The standard presents a flexible array of competencies for use by management to develop tailored T&Q programs applicable to site-specific job functions, facilities, and operations. This standard stresses the necessity of integrating standard training subjects with operational experience in order to qualify as an NCS engineer.

The International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025) will be taking place April 27–30 in Denver, Colo.

Registration for the meeting is now open. The host hotel—The Westin Denver Downtown—is also taking room reservations.

The nomination period for the 2025 Nuclear News 40 Under 40 list is now open. The list aims to highlight those who are putting in the work to become leaders in the nuclear community. All nominations must be submitted online by 11:59 p.m. (CST) on April 30, 2025.

The American Nuclear Society’s Chicago–Great Lakes Local Section hosted a presentation on February 27 on developments at the molten salt research reactor at Abilene Christian University’s Nuclear Energy Experimental Testing (NEXT) Lab.

A recording of the presentation is available on the ANS website.

The next opportunity to earn professional engineer (PE) licensure in nuclear engineering is this fall, and now is the time to sign up and begin studying with the help of materials like the online module program offered by the American Nuclear Society.

The American Nuclear Society election is now open. Members can vote for the Society’s next vice president/president-elect and treasurer as well as six board members (four U.S. directors, one non-U.S. director, and one student director). Completed ballots must be submitted by 1:00 p.m. (EDT) on Tuesday, April 15, 2025.

The ITER organization (IO) recently published an article asking, “Have you ever wondered what it’s like inside an operating tokamak?” For speculative answers, the international nuclear fusion project turned to electrical engineer Michael Walsh, the new head of ITER’s Fusion Technology—Instrumentation & Control Division and previous head of ITER’s Diagnostics Division.

With the annual ANS election right around the corner, American Nuclear Society members will be going to the polls to vote for a vice president/president-elect, treasurer, and members-at-large for the Board of Directors. In January, Nuclear News published statements from candidates for vice president/president-elect and treasurer. This month, we are featuring statements from each nominee for the Board of Directors.

The American Nuclear Society has opened applications for the Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship. Congressional Fellows can directly contribute to the federal policymaking process, working in either a U.S. senator’s or representative’s personal office or with a congressional committee. They will be responsible for supplying Congress with their expertise in nuclear science and technology, having a hand in the creation of new laws while gaining a deeper understanding of the legislative process.

ANS strongly encourages interested members to apply. Application instructions can be found here.

The Hill recently published an opinion piece by Cindy Folkers and Amanda Nichols entitled “They won’t tell you these truths about nuclear energy.” Sadly, after the first sentence, their so-called truth veers into a diatribe of antiscientific fearmongering and misrepresentations.

The ANS Scholarship Program offers student members both merit- and financial need–based scholarships ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. Thanks to our donors, the American Nuclear Society will be able to award over $250,000 to students for the 2025–2026 academic year.

At the end of 2024, the candidates for the annual American Nuclear Society election were announced. Since then, Catherine Prat, an ANS member since 2012, launched a successful write-in campaign to be considered for a seat on the Board of Directors. Having received at least 200 signatures from Society members in favor of her nomination, Prat is now a candidate by petition, bringing the total number on the ballot to 18 candidates who have been nominated for the positions of ANS vice president/president-elect, treasurer, and six board positions (four U.S. directors, one non-U.S. director, and one student director). Ballots will be sent via email on Tuesday, March 4, 2025, and must be submitted by 1:00 p.m. (EDT) on Tuesday, April 15, 2025.

With the annual American Nuclear Society election right around the corner, ANS members will be going to the polls to vote for a vice president/president-elect, treasurer, and members-at-large for the board of directors. Nuclear News is printing here statements from each nominee for vice president/president-elect and treasurer. The February NN issue will feature the statements of board member-at-large nominees.

A newly published standard is now available at the ANS store.

The standard, ANSI/ANS-8.26-2024, Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineer Training and Qualification Program (revision of ANS-8.26-2007; R2022), presents the fundamental elements of a training and qualification program for individuals with responsibilities for performing the various technical aspects of criticality safety engineering.

It's been another successful publishing year for the American Nuclear Society's Nuclear News, Radwaste Solutions, the online Nuclear Newswire, and the NN Daily newsletter.

For Nuclear News, below are the publishing themes for 2025.

If you have story ideas for any of these themes or for Radwaste Solutions, please contact Nucnews@ans.org.