The Idaho Environmental Coalition (IEC) has provided funding to 15 classrooms in southeastern Idaho to support local educators and encourage the next generation of workers to pursue technical careers, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced. The IEC, which is led by Amentum and includes North Wind Portage as a partner, was awarded a 10-year, $6.4 billion contract in 2021 to manage cleanup operation at the Idaho National Laboratory Site.

Lisa Marshall
president@ans.org

This year's ANS Conference on Nuclear Training and Education (CONTE), held in early February, tackled emerging approaches to nuclear skills and the workforce. How do we attract, retain, and qualify our future professionals? What technologies will enhance teaching and assessment methods?

In 2024, the Department of Energy called the following developments “wins for nuclear energy”:

• Vogtle-4 had its commercial start.
• The ADVANCE Act to accelerate deployment of advanced reactors.
• Reactor recommissioning announcements and collaborations with tech companies.
• Growing our domestic nuclear fuel supply chain and expanding domestic capacity by 200 GW.
• Demonstration projects such as Natrium, Project Pele, and Hermes.

WM Symposia (WM), which hosts the Waste Management Conference every year in Phoenix, Ariz., has launched a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) Educators’ Council to support educators as they prepare students for potential careers in the nuclear industry.

Lis Marshall
president@ans.org

Six months into my ANS presidency, the pace has been hectic yet good. I’ve taken nearly two dozen trips to student and local chapters; companies; and various regional, national, and international meetings, where I’ve spoken about the current and future path of nuclear: people-centered interactions that focus on the benefits and capacities of our technologies.

Perception, timing, and financing remain challenges. Perception can be addressed in our deeds, so I am heartened by continuing industry collaborations and subsequent communication to strengthen efforts in the arenas of energy security, environmental stewardship, and (inter)national leadership as we assist new-to-nuclear nations; leverage our outreach, educational, and policy instruments; and volunteer our expertise.

In November, I joined ANS’s delegation to COP29 Baku, Azerbaijan, where we strove be the voice of the nuclear community. Our presence at this and future Conferences of the Parties is necessary if we are to continue the momentum around nuclear science and technology.

Nearly 60 eighth graders from schools across the central Savannah River area recently gathered at the Ruth Patrick Science Education Center in Aiken, S.C., for the Savannah River Site’s “STEM Like a Girl—Introduce a Girl to Engineering and IT” event. This initiative is designed to inspire the next generation of female engineers and STEM leaders.

The Minority Serving Institution Partnership Program (MSIPP) of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has recently awarded seven federal grants to projects involving minority serving institutions (MSIs).

WM Symposia Inc., the nonprofit organization that hosts the annual Waste Management Conference in Phoenix, Ariz., has launched a new initiative dedicated to supporting educators in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Nuclear science and technology is uniquely positioned to be a gateway for curiosity and exploration for students in grades K–12. Its study examines the literal fabric of reality, it has applications from the tiniest to the grandest of scales. It’s a constantly evolving industry with a bright future of discoveries and new technologies, and it’s an essential factor in our global effort to reduce carbon emissions and transition to cleaner energy sources. Frankly, learning about and doing things with atoms is pretty cool, from a kid’s perspective.

Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

Another year, another stellar performance by America’s nuclear plants. We’ve come to expect high capacity factors, and it’s a credit to the men and women of the profession. They’ve made routine something that was unimaginable not so long ago.

The decadal challenge for the nuclear enterprise now is to maintain this high level of operational excellence for the current fleet, while at the same time ushering in a new generation of technologies at scale. It will be a big job—but one that seems more and more likely with each passing day.

It is against this hopeful backdrop that I take the opportunity to update you on our latest steps toward making the American Nuclear Society a class-leading professional society.

Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC), the liquid waste contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, recently presented a $10,000 check to Voorhees University to fund science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) scholarships.

Faculty and staff from Winthrop University recently toured the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site as part of a workforce development partnership.

The NEDHO Diversity Panel featured, from left, University of Michigan professor John Foster; Jeffrey Harper, then a vice president at X-energy; William D. Magwood, director general of the NEA; and Londrea Garrett, a Ph.D. student at UM. (Photo: Aditi Verma/University of Michigan)

The Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization (NEDHO) has been sponsoring Diversity Panels since October 2022, when the inaugural meeting was hosted by the University of Tennessee Department of Nuclear Engineering. The panels were established as a distinguished speaker series by a working group led by Wes Hines, head of the UT Department of Nuclear Engineering, and Todd Allen, a former NEDHO chair and the current chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS) at the University of Michigan.

Allen explained that the panels are meant to be “a first step toward improving the diversity of the talent entering the nuclear science and engineering fields.” The idea came from a presentation by Andreas Enqvist, director of the nuclear engineering program at the University of Florida, at the November 2021 NEDHO meeting. According to Allen, Enqvist described “ASEE [American Society for Engineering Education] data on how poorly the nuclear engineering field was doing at getting black students to study nuclear at the B.S. level and, even worse, how few moved from B.S. to graduate programs.”

A program manager from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant recently visited the Savannah River Site to benchmark an education outreach program’s successful science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) outreach initiatives, which have been in place with local schools since 2008.

American Nuclear Society conferences always showcase the latest in nuclear, but one of the biggest attractions at this past November’s Winter Conference and Expo in Washington, D.C., was tech that is not new at all: cloud chambers. The Society is launching a new K-12 outreach effort featuring the ANS Visualizing Radiation Cloud Chamber Kit, and ANS staff were on hand to show it off.

Nuclear Energy 101, the five-course educational series for congressional staffers, came to a close in October with its final talk. This seminar series is a fun—and popular—tool for ANS to explain the basics of nuclear science and technology to and network with Capitol Hill denizens. After a long hiatus, the series returned in March 2023, and delivered five successful courses.

“I see nuclear energy as the obvious path forward, and it confuses me as to why everybody else doesn’t. That’s the primary goal with my Miss America policy platform of ‘clean energy, cleaner future.’”

Recently I sat down with Grace Stanke, the current Miss America and a student at the University of Wisconsin in nuclear engineering exploring subjects like nuclear fuel enrichment and reactor performance (as well as being a virtuoso violinist, for good measure).

This year she’s touring the country advocating for clean energy in a cleaner future and for America to reach net zero with the help of nuclear power, while correcting misconceptions and improving communication about nuclear science and encouraging young women to pursue STEM careers.

We talked just after she had finished visiting the Hanford Site while she was on her way to appear at Town Hall Seattle at the request of grassroots pronuclear group Friends of Fission Northwest. I was impressed with the depth of her knowledge and her ability to communicate difficult issues in a concise manner that didn’t require any deep background to understand. I mean, who knows the intricacies of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant? I was tempted to ask her to run for president.

Ezibe

The American Nuclear Society is invested in growing the nuclear community through its K-12 STEM programs like the STEM Academy and Navigating Nuclear. Craig Piercy, ANS Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer, noted that when he speaks with engineering and technology students, “Most of them chose to go into nuclear because they believe in the power of the technology to help people. So, the core question is this: How do we inspire and educate a new, larger generation of professionals? It has to start at the K-12 level.”

To further this goal, the Society has brought on Uchenna Ezibe as senior manager of STEM programs. Ezibe, who has spent his career in education or STEM program management, has a clear passion for STEM education and a natural curiosity about nuclear science and technology and is very excited to help grow ANS’s educational programs.

For almost four decades, the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Ruth Patrick Science Education Center at the University of South Carolina–Aiken (USC Aiken) have partnered to bring science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education to the area's kindergarten through 12th grade students.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) will offer an estimated $24.5 million to minority-serving institutions to help foster a sustainable and diverse science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce pipeline within the office.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded nine new grants totaling $40.8 million to minority-serving institutions (MSIs) to promote the development of a diverse, highly skilled, and enduring stream of students in STEM fields who may find careers with the NNSA. Each grant that was awarded has a three- to five-year period of performance.