40 Under 40 Roundtable

Abdalla Abou-Jaoude is a recognized authority on advanced reactor technology, holding a pivotal role at Idaho National Lab (INL). He is the lead for the ‘MARVEL’ reactor, the first Department of Energy (DOE) advanced reactor demonstration in four decades. This microreactor is expected to lay the foundation for future commercial deployments.

Prior to that, Abdalla served as the deputy national technical director of the DOE Systems Analysis & Integration (SA&I) program. In that role he co-led a large campaign spread across six national labs that addresses system-wide, socioeconomics, and cost/schedule topics relating to nuclear technology.

Previously Abdalla was the Advanced Reactor Research Integrator with a broad research portfolio across 7 DOE programs on topics stemming from molten salt technology, nuclear technoeconomics, and multiphysics simulation. He most notably led a first-of-a-kind fueled salt irradiation experiment in 2023.

He earned his PhD degree from Georgia Tech and his Masters in Engineering from Imperial College London.

Emily Caffrey, CHP is the Program Director and an Assistant Professor for the University of Alabama at Birmingham Master's in Health Physics Program. She has a BS in Nuclear Engineering and a PhD in Radiation Health Physics and Statistics from Oregon State University.

Caffrey served as one of the American Nuclear Society 2024 Congressional Fellows under Senator Whitehouse on the Senate Budget Committee. She is the youngest elected member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements and achieved the title of Certified Health Physicist in 2021.

In addition to her day job, Emily serves as the Ask-The-Experts editor for the HPS, where the public can ask radiation related questions and get answers from experts in the field.

Lauren Lathem is the Advanced Nuclear Program Manager within Southern Company’s Research & Development organization. She leads the R&D advanced nuclear program in support of the development, demonstration, and deployment of advanced nuclear technology, namely molten salt reactors. She serves as the Program Manager for two major cost-shared public-private partnerships totaling over $250M — the Advanced Reactors Concepts (ARC) award and the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) award. Lauren is acting Chair of the Molten Salt Reactor Technology Working Group (MSR TWG), an industry working group advancing the deployment of MSR technology.

In support of new technology development and demonstration, Lauren spends significant time working with the Department of Energy and Congress to establish and enable multi-year funding programs.

Beyond nuclear technology, Lauren provides strategic thinking to the economy-wide decarbonization conversation. She collaborates cross-functionally within R&D to further the pursuit of other key clean energy technologies including hydrogen-based systems and net zero industrial clusters.

Lauren joined Southern Company in 2015 as a Process Engineer within the Gasification Technology group. In this role she had the opportunity to support technical and economic evaluations for low-carbon power generation technologies including Southern Company’s Transport Integrated Gasification (TRIG™) technology. She also supported domestic and international marketing efforts of Southern Generation Technologies (SGT).

From 2013 to 2015, Lauren gained engineering experience while working as a Process Engineer for Jacobs Engineering and Jacobs Consultancy in Houston, Texas.

Lauren earned a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering and a Minor in Business from Auburn University in May of 2013. She tries to give back to Auburn through her membership on the Auburn Engineering Young Alumni Council, guest lecturing for Nuclear Power Generation Systems classes, and financial donations.

Kallie Metzger is the Director of Fuel for the Westinghouse eVinci microreactor where she coordinates microreactor fuel strategy, including HALEU and TRISO fuel supply, development, and fabrication. Her engineering team is responsible for the fuel design, core design, and safety analysis of the eVinci microreactor.

In her prior role, she led the Accident Tolerant Fuel Program at Westinghouse and prior to that, she supported DOE-NE and DOE-EM missions as a Nuclear Engineer at Savannah River National Laboratory. She earned her PhD from the University of South Carolina in nuclear engineering and was a Department of Energy Nuclear Energy University Programs Fellow.

During her extended graduate fellowship, she worked with the BISON fuel team at Idaho National Laboratory. Metzger excels in collaborating with multiple organizations to drive product innovation and is a champion of leveraging computational tools to expedite and accelerate fuel development and qualification.

Erik Nygaard is the director of Product Development for BWXT Advanced Technologies, LLC, a subsidiary of BWX Technologies, Inc. (BWXT), which is the sole manufacturer of nuclear reactors for the U.S. Navy. Nygaard is responsible for the development of new products for Advanced Technologies, LLC, which includes commercial microreactors, data science technologies, and advanced manufacturing techniques. The products being developed by Erik Nygaard’s organization include the company’s 50 MWth commercial microreactor- BANR.

Previously, he served as the director of Research and Engineering leading the organization’s design and technology development efforts for customers like NASA and the Department of Defense.

Additionally, he previously served as the Director of Isotope Research and Development, overseeing the development of the company’s groundbreaking medical isotope technology.

Nygaard has also served BWXT as the product line manager responsible for the development of isotope technology, a nuclear engineer in the company’s Advance Reactors and Engineering group and a safety analysis engineer and test engineer for mPower™, BWXT’s Generation III++ small modular reactor project. He holds three U.S. patents and two pending for propriety technologies associated with the medical isotope production.

Nygaard holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he was licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a student operator.

As Vice President of Global Business Development, Reinke leads the Business Development organization at X-energy and is responsible for end-to-end commercial reactor business development and sales – strategy and marketing, analytics, organizational management, customer relationship development, contract negotiations, capture management, and early-phase project management.

Reinke is an energy executive with expertise in science and innovation, clean energy technology development, industries of the future, nuclear systems, critical minerals and materials, space science and technology, and the nexus of energy security and national security. His policy development and implementation experience spans both the legislative and executive branches.

Reinke originally joined X-energy as the Senior Director for Corporate Strategy and Advisor to the CEO, leading long-term strategic planning for the company and supporting key functions ranging from business planning to business development, and strategic partnerships to strategic supplier relations. He also oversaw that corporate communications organization and supported X-energy’s capital planning and government engagement.

Prior to joining X-energy, Reinke served as the Executive Director of the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy of the Department of Energy (DOE). As the senior policy advisor to the Secretary, he spearheaded high-priority energy initiatives and led an interdisciplinary team of experts in crafting long-term, cross-cutting DOE strategies. Before moving to DOE, Reinke served as majority professional staff on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, where he led departmental oversight and development of law spanning a range of energy issues including technology development, batteries and grid storage, workforce, microgrids and integrated energy systems, nuclear energy, and university R&D. He first joined the ENR team as the 2016 American Nuclear Society Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Fellow. As the chief architect of legislation and strategies in these roles, Reinke has worked with researchers and innovators across economic sectors.

Reinke holds his PhD and MS in nuclear engineering, as well as his BS in physics and French from the Ohio State University, where he was a NASA Space Technology Research Fellow and a Nuclear Regulatory Commission Fellow. His graduate studies included radiation damage in advanced materials for space applications and the development and characterization of high-temperature radiation detectors for nuclear safeguards in molten salt reprocessing environments. His research experiences also include studying the cultural and political context of the development of the French nuclear program and serving as a research assistant in a High Energy-Density Physics laser research group.

It’s not often that you find an athlete, engineer, musician, and a former Miss America all in one. Grace Stanke breaks misconceptions surrounding nuclear energy through social media, public engagements, and educational workshops.

During her year as Miss America 2023, Grace was named the “New Face of Nuclear Energy” by the Wall Street Journal and was on the Forbes 30 under 30 list for Energy. While completing approximately 270,000 miles of travel, she finished her undergraduate degree in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Since passing on the title of Miss America, Grace continues to advocate for peaceful purposes of the science of the atom. She was recognized by CNET as part of the four women powering America’s Clean Energy Transition.

By encouraging worldwide change for clean, zero-carbon emission energy sources, Stanke emphasizes the benefits of nuclear power and seeks to dispel the myths around nuclear energy while inspiring the next generation of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.

In March 2024, Grace began work as a Nuclear Fuels Engineer & Clean Energy Advocate at Constellation. Outside of the nuclear industry, Grace is an avid waterskier, classical violinist, and a travel enthusiast. “I’m not looking to change the entire world on my own - all I need to do is make the one connection that will start a chain reaction.”