Dignitary
We are pleased to have Mr. William D. Magwood as our Keynote Lecturer.
Mr. Magwood took up his duties as Director-General of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) on 1 September 2014. He has extensive experience in both the regulatory and developmental aspects of nuclear energy, including at the international level.
From 2010 to 2014, he served as one of the five Commissioners appointed by the US President and confirmed by the US Senate to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). While a commissioner, he advocated the importance of nuclear regulatory independence and the necessity of maintaining strong, credible and technically sound nuclear regulation in the United States and all countries that use nuclear power.
Prior to his appointment at the NRC, from 2005 to 2010 he provided independent strategic and policy advice to US and international clients on energy, environment, education, and technology policy issues. From 1998 to 2005, Mr Magwood was Director of the US Government’s civilian nuclear energy programme at the US Department of Energy (DOE). During his tenure, he established the Idaho National Laboratory; created activities that reversed the decline of US nuclear technology education; and launched important initiatives such as the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) and the US “Nuclear Power 2010,” which helped restart nuclear plant construction in the United States. He was also actively involved in the work of the NEA, serving as a Steering Committee Bureau member from 1999 to 2005, including a term as Chair of the Steering Committee from 2004 to 2005.
Prior to his experience at the DOE, Mr Magwood managed electric utility research and nuclear policy programmes at the Edison Electric Institute in Washington, DC, and was a scientist at Westinghouse Electric Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Mr Magwood, a US national, holds Bachelor degrees in Physics and English from Carnegie Mellon University and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Pittsburgh.
Distinguished Speaker
Kathryn D. Huff serves as the Acting Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy. Prior to her current role, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she led the Advanced Reactors and Fuel Cycles Research Group. She was also a Blue Waters Assistant Professor with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. She was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow in both the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium and the Berkeley Institute for Data Science at the University of California – Berkeley. She received her PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013 and her undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Chicago. Her research focused on modeling and simulation of advanced nuclear reactors and fuel cycles.
She is an active member of the American Nuclear Society, Chair of the Nuclear Nonproliferation and Policy Division, a past chair of the Fuel Cycle and Waste Management Division, and recipient of both the Young Member Excellence and Mary Jane Oestmann Professional Women’s Achievement awards. Through leadership within Software Carpentry, SciPy, the Hacker Within, and the Journal of Open Source Software she also advocates for best practices in open, reproducible scientific computing.
Organizers
Dr. Todd Allen is Professor at the University of Michigan and a Senior Fellow at Third Way, a DC base Think Tank, supporting their Clean Energy Portfolio. He was the Deputy Director for Science and Technology at the Idaho National Laboratory from January 2013 through January 2016. Prior to INL he was a Professor in the Engineering Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin, a position held from September 2003 through December 2012 and again from January 2016-December 2018. From March 2008-December 2012, he was concurrently the Scientific Director of the Advanced Test Reactor National Scientific User Facility at INL. Prior to joining the University of Wisconsin, he was a Nuclear Engineer at Argonne National Laboratory-West in Idaho Falls. His Doctoral Degree is in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Michigan (1997) and his Bachelor’s Degree in Nuclear Engineering is from Northwestern University (1984). Prior to graduate work, he was an officer in the United States Navy Nuclear Power Program.
Dr. David Novog is an internationally recognized researcher and engineer with 25 years of experience in academia and industry and holds an Industrial Research Chair in Nuclear Safety.
His research interests include reactor risk assessment methodologies, severe accident mitigation, and emergency planning and served in an advisory role on the recent Ontario Nuclear Emergency Response Plan update.
An emerging area of research in Dr. Novog’s group examines the vital role of large and small modular reactors (SMRs) in reducing humankind’s CO2 footprint and he is the Principal Investigator for the federally funded Small Modular Advanced Reactor Training (SMART) program.
Lecturers
We are grateful to have these world-renowned experts to lead our program.
Sama Bilbao y León became the Director General of World Nuclear Association in October 2020. Sama has more than 20 years of experience in nuclear engineering and energy policy. Sama has a very diverse professional experience having worked in the nuclear industry (Nuclear Safety Analysis Engineer, Dominion Energy, USA), in academia (Director of Nuclear Engineering Programs and Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), USA) and in international organisations (Head of the Division of Nuclear Technology Development and Economics at the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), Head of the Technical Secretariat for the Generation IV International Forum (GIF), Head of Water Cooled Reactors Technology Development Unit, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)). Sama, who is originally from Spain, holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a master’s degree in Energy Technologies from the Polytechnic University of Madrid; a master’s degree and a PhD in Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics from the University of Wisconsin – Madison; and an MBA from Averett University. Sama is one of the seven founders of the North American Young Generation in Nuclear (NA-YGN).
John Barrett Ph.D, Ambassador (ret’d) is President, Portolan Global Inc., a consulting firm specializing in government & stakeholder relations in the nuclear and clean energy sector; international governance & the peaceful uses of nuclear energy; geopolitical risk and non-proliferation; strategic analysis & policy advice uniting clean energy, climate change and security; and in the promotion of advanced small reactors (SMRs). He represents Westinghouse Electric Canada as Vice-President, Strategy & Government Relations.
Previously, Dr. Barrett was President & CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Association (2013-2019). From 2009-2013, he served as Canada’s Ambassador to the International Organizations in Vienna (IAEA, CTBTO, UN); Chair of the IAEA Board of Governors; President of the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice; and was Canada’s Ambassador to Austria and Slovakia.
At Global Affairs Canada, he served as Director General for Strategic Planning & Coordination, Chief Risk Officer, and Director, Disarmament & WMD Non-Proliferation. He has held executive positions in the Privy Council Office, Office of the Governor General of Canada, and Department of National Defence. From 1994-1999, he was Head of Policy Planning at NATO HQ (Brussels) and Chief Speechwriter to the NATO Secretary-General.
Dr. Barrett holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics (UK) and is a former Editor of Millennium: Journal of International Studies (LSE). He is a Director of the World Institute for Nuclear Security (WINS) and holds the ICD.D certification of the Institute of Corporate Directors (Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto).
Leslie Dewan is the founder of Criticality Capital, focusing on investing in carbon-free energy production, new nuclear technology, and sustainable building materials. From 2011 to 2018, she was the CEO of Transatomic Power, a company that designed safer nuclear reactors that leave behind less waste than conventional designs. Leslie received her Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from MIT, with a research focus on computational nuclear materials. She also holds S.B. degrees from MIT in mechanical engineering and nuclear engineering. Before starting her Ph.D., she worked for a robotics company in Cambridge, MA, where she designed search-and-rescue robots and equipment for in-field identification of chemical and nuclear weapons. Leslie has been awarded an MIT Presidential Fellowship and a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship. She has served on the MIT Corporation, MIT’s board of trustees, and is currently serving on the National Academy of Engineering’s study, “Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States.” Leslie has been named a TIME Magazine “30 People Under 30 Changing the World,” an MIT Technology Review “Innovator Under 35,” a Forbes “30 Under 30,” a National Geographic Explorer, and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.
Peter Elder, MSc (Eng), BSc (Engineering Physics) is Vice-President and Chief Science Officer at the Technical Support Branch, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). He has been working for the CNSC for over 20 years in various regulatory roles covering the entire nuclear fuel cycle. He started as a technical specialist in 1996 as a fuel performance and safety analyst, and moved on to become a project manager in power reactor licensing. He has also occupied a variety of management roles throughout his career at the CNSC. He has experience in all areas of the organization’s mandate: safety, security, safeguards and environmental protection. He has also served as a nuclear counsellor at the Permanent Mission to the International Organizations in Vienna. In this role, he advised the Canadian government on International Atomic Energy Agency activities in nuclear safety and security, emergency management and technical cooperation.
Before joining the CNSC, he worked for Atomic Energy Canada Limited as a section head and research scientist in the area of high-temperature fuel behaviour and fission product release. He co-authored a number of scientific papers during this period on fuel behaviour under accident conditions, and was involved in several international collaborations in this area.
He completed a Master’s in Materials Engineering from Queen’s University following his undergraduate degree in Engineering Science (Physics Option) from the University of Toronto. He was appointed Vice-President of the CNSC’s Technical Support Branch in April 2018.
Dave Grabaskas is the manager of the Safety and Risk Assessments group in the Nuclear Science and Engineering division at Argonne National Laboratory. His research centers on the development and application of probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) approaches for the risk-informed design and licensing of advanced nuclear reactors. Focus areas include methods for the analysis of novel and passive system reliability, source term analysis, and risk-informed licensing processes. He currently serves as chair of the ASME/ANS Non-LWR PRA standard working group.
Tom Gray is a Nonproliferation Specialist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He leads the Nuclear Analysis and Building Capacity Team within PNNL’s Global Security Technology and Policy Group. In his career, he has been fortunate to work on a wide variety of topics related to Nuclear Nonproliferation Technology and Policy, first as a Nuclear Submarine Officer in the US Navy, then later as a National Nuclear Security Administration Graduate Fellow and most recently as a Junior Professional Officer at the International Atomic Energy Agency Division of Nuclear Security. At PNNL, Tom works on a variety of different projects that serve the national security mission, focusing on nuclear nonproliferation, export controls, nuclear security and stakeholder engagement. Aside from his substantive interests, Tom is passionate about professional development and mentoring, which he supports on a daily basis in his role as the NNSA Graduate Fellowship Program Operations Manager.
Jason K. Hansen is a Sr. Research Economist at the Idaho National Laboratory, in the modeling and simulation group in the Department of Integrated Energy and Market Analysis. His research interests support resource-informed decision making, applying microeconomic theory and numerical analysis to evaluate the future consequences of today’s decisions in nuclear energy and land management. Hansen earned his BA in economics from Idaho State University, and from the University of New Mexico his MA in economic theory and PhD in natural resources and environmental economics. At INL Hansen performs economic analysis on the nuclear fuel cycle, focusing particularly on cost and financial risk analysis of system components. Hansen’s work appears in book chapters, peer reviewed articles, and technical reports. Prior to joining the INL in 2014, Hansen was on the faculty of Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey CA where he was part of the Defense Resources Management Institute.
Joe Halackna is an engineering leader in mechanical engineering and new plant designs, products, and technologies. He started his career designing and constructing the AP1000 plants for Westinghouse, becoming an expert in plant integration and development of systems, technologies, analysis, and manufacturing to deliver solutions on critical plant design issues. After managing a diverse group of mechanical engineers for 5 years, Joe joined the eVinci micro reactor program in 2018 to focus on growing the engineering team and development of the product in its conceptual phase.
Margot Hurlbert has a B. Admin. (Great Distinction) from the University of Regina (1985), an LL.B. (Osgoode) (1987), an LL.M. (Osgoode) (2005) in Constitutional Law with a focus on energy, natural resource, indigenous and environmental issues, and a Ph.D. (University of Amsterdam) in Social and Behaviour Sciences with a thesis “Adaptive Governance of Disaster: Drought and Flood in Rural Areas” published by Springer. Before entering academia Margot was the Assistant General Counsel of the Legal Department at SaskPower.
Her research interests focus on energy, climate change, agriculture, and water. Margot has lead and participated in many SSHRC, NSERC and IDRC research projects, serves on the editorial boards of international journals, is the Lead of the Science, Technology and Innovation Research Cluster at Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy in Regina. Margot is Coordinating Lead Author of a chapter of the Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Land and Climate (2019) and a Review Editor for AR6. Margot sits on Future Earth’s Earth Commission Working Group on ‘Transformations’, and is a Scientific Coordinator, Task Force on Earth System Law and a Senior Research Fellow of the Earth Systems Governance Project (Future Earth), Delft, the Netherlands.
Esam Hussein has earned degrees in nuclear engineering from Alexandria University (BScE and MScE) and McMaster University (PhD). He is currently the Dean of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Regina, Canada and was an engineering professor at the University of New Brunswick, and a nuclear design engineer with Ontario Hydro. His research has focused on the application of atomic/nuclear radiation in nondestructive testing and imaging, but he has turned his attention lately to the technology of small modular reactors.
John F. Kotek is Senior Vice President for Policy and Public Affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute. Prior to joining NEI, he served as Acting Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy in the US Department of Energy. From 2010-2012, John served as Staff Director to the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. In 2002, John was the American Nuclear Society’s Congressional Fellow. John began his career with the U.S. Department of Energy in 1989, and also served as an R&D program manager at Argonne National Laboratory. He holds a BS in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Illinois and an MBA from the University of Maryland.
Gaston Meskens holds master degrees in theoretical physics and nuclear engineering from the University of Ghent (Belgium). He works part-time with the Science and Technology Studies group of the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK•CEN and with the Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of the University of Ghent.
He has twenty+ years of experience in participative and transdisciplinary research related to the ethics of governance of issues such as sustainable development, energy, climate change and radioactive waste management and with the policy processes of the UNFCCC, UNCSD, UN-NPT, and of the research-related activities of the EC.
Since 2006, he is member of the steering committee of the Constituency of Research-oriented Independent NGOs towards the UNFCCC and was chair of the constituency from 2016 to 2018.
In the previous years, he also participated as invited expert in Belgian parliamentary and public hearings on the ethics of risk-inherent technology governance, in several Technical Committees of the IAEA and of the OECD and in UN missions in the frame of sustainable development. At SCK•CEN Gaston Meskens is now working as researcher, writer, lecturer and mediator of dialogue on ethics in relation to science, technology and democratic decision making.
As X-energy’s Chief Nuclear Officer, Eben Mulder, PhD, leads development of X-energy’s pebble bed high-temperature gas reactor (HTGR) technology. In this executive leadership role, he serves as overall lead for the project, guiding the architectural framework for the Xe-100 reactor project, the R&D roadmap for advanced fuel-cycle designs, core thermal-hydraulic flow path design, and reactivity control and shutdown layout and design. His duties extend to overseeing techno-economical coherence of the overall design consideration.
An expert in nuclear reactor design, Eben has authored more than 30 technical papers and presented more than 55 keynote addresses and invited talks worldwide. Before joining X-energy, Eben was CEO and Director of Steenkampskraal Thorium Ltd. (Centurion, South Africa), responsible for the oversight of advanced small pebble bed high-temperature reactors and advanced fuel cycle designs. Prior to that, Eben was Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Nuclear Consultant at PBMR (Pty) Ltd., South Africa’s clean technology Pebble Bed Modular Reactor program.
Ray Rothrock is Executive Chairman RedSeal, Inc. and Partner Emeritus, Venrock
Ray Rothrock has three decades of business leadership–investing in, advising and leading many of the technology and cybersecurity companies that form the fabric of today’s networks. He is partner emeritus at Venrock, the VC arm of the Rockefeller family’s efforts, and the Executive Chairman of RedSeal, which provides critical cyber and business insights via its cyber risk modeling platform to more than 50 government agencies and hundreds of commercial enterprises.
Raluca Scarlat is an assistant professor at UC Berkeley, in the Department of Nuclear Engineering. Professor Scarlat has a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from UC Berkeley and a B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Cornell University. Scarlat’s research focuses on chemistry of and corrosion in high-temperature inorganic fluids and their application to nuclear energy. Scarlat’s research also includes safety analysis, licensing and design of advanced nuclear reactors and engineering ethics.
Research group website: https://salt.nuc.berkeley.edu/
Cheryl “Cherie” Sweeney is a technical Program Manager at Westinghouse Electric Company. She has broad experience managing nuclear electronic projects of various sizes but specializes in first of a kind deliverables. She has a proven track record in delivering excellence in multinational technical project management, steering multi-functional teams to develop and enhance products and implementing organizational and process efficiencies to facilitate continuous improvement. Prior experiences include operations production planning and senior engineer coordinating parts obsolescence issues for legacy electronic products.
Before joining the Westinghouse organization, Cherie worked for over 10 years at Bechtel Plant Machinery, Incorporated supporting the US Naval Nuclear program in various roles of increasing responsibility including Project Management, Electronic Technical Manuals, and supply chain. She guest lectures once at Carnegie Mellon University sharing her Project Management experience with mechanical engineering students.
Ms. Sweeney holds a Bachelor degree in International Business from the Pennsylvania State University, a Master of Business Administration from Duquesne University and a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from Project Management Institute
Judges
Abdalla Abou-Jaoude is an Advance Reactor Core Analyst at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). He is leading a multi-million dollars award to demonstrate molten salt irradiation capability at INL. He is also the workpackage manager for the Virtual Test Bed (VTB) a National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC)-funded initiative supporting the deployment of advance reactors via multiphysics modeling & simulations capabilties. Abdalla has extensive experience in advance reactor design, notably for Molten Salt Reactors, Sodium Fast Reactors, Nuclear Thermal Propulsion, and heat-pipe based microreactors. He is also has heavily involved in the areas of nuclear economics and nonpoliferation. Abdalla is leading the development of an ‘economics-by-design’ framework to assess the cost of advanced reactors, notably microreactors, as part of the Department of Energy Systems Analysis & Integration (SA&I) campaign. He was also previously involved in a private-public partnership with a U.S. utility to evaluate hydrogen-cogeneration options at nuclear power plants. He graduated with a doctorate in Nuclear Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2017 and was the INL Deboisblanc Distinguished Postdoctoral Associate during 2018. He obtained a MEng in Mechanical with Nuclear Engineering from Imperial College London in 2013.
Jeremy T. Busby is the Division Director for the Reactor and Nuclear Systems Division in the Nuclear Science and Engineering Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His contributions range from light water reactors to sodium reactors and space reactor systems as well as research in support of the ITER project.
Dr. Busby’s research has focused primarily on materials performance and development of materials for nuclear reactor applications. Over the course of his career, Dr. Busby has participated in materials research for space reactors, fusion machines, advanced fast reactors (including sodium, salt, and gas designs), and light water reactors.
In 2011, he was tasked with helping coordinate DOE’s response to the events at the Fukushima nuclear facility. In this role, he helped coordinate analysis coming from the US national laboratories and universities. This data and analysis were integrated with work from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, US industry partners, and most importantly, with colleagues in Japan. Dr. Busby’s was awarded a Secretary of Energy Achievement Awards for “contributions to DOE’s response to Fukushima” in 2011.
Dr. Busby was the lead for the Materials Aging and Degradation Pathway for the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy’s Light Water Reactor Sustainability Research and Development program from 2009 to 2015. In 2015, Dr. Busby became ORNL’s Director for the Materials Science and Technology Division, which is one of the largest organizations dedicated to materials research, both basic and applied. In 2019, he transitioned to his current role as Division Director for Reactor and Nuclear Systems Division at ORNL.
Jean C. Ragusa is a Professor and Associate Director of the Institute for Scientific Computation (ISC) at Texas A&M University.
His research interests include
- Radiation Transport
- Reactor Physics
- Multiphysics Simulations
- Predictive Science: Model Order Reduction, Uncertainty Quantification, Machine Learning.
Edouard (Eddie) Saab is President, Canada Westinghouse Electric Company. He has 20 years of experience in nuclear market development, customer & organizational fluency, and building collaborative networks in support of engagements with key stakeholders across Canada’s nuclear industry.
Mr. Saab supports Westinghouse’s multiple business units targeting the Canadian market by developing a safe and healthy culture and execute Westinghouse plans for operational emergence with fiscal accountability of the Operating Plant Services Business Units in Canada, specifically focused on Engineered Systems & Solutions (ESS), Outage & Maintenance Services (OMS), Digital Engineering Services (DES) and Fuels market development, penetration and growth. He will also support Environmental Services D&D efforts, Westinghouse Government Services at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories sites, and our eVinci micro-reactor commercialization efforts as part of Energy Systems.
In addition to Westinghouse commercial and operational responsibilities, Mr. Saab collaborates with leadership on all matters related to the Canadian market, including; Market and competitive analysis, forecasting and cross-pollination collaboration; Mergers & Acquisitions due diligence and business case development, then into integration activities; and, Liaison with Canadian Government ministries and officials for the purposes of lobbying/positioning needs, and leveraging economic stimulus/levers/funding mechanisms.
Lori Walters is Manager, Advanced Reactor Materials & Chemistry Branch at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. She has over 25 years of experience in reactor materials research. As part of her involvement with reactor life extension and component fitness-for-service investigations, Lori has developed expertise with irradiation induced effects on in-core materials, materials performance and in-reactor materials testing. She is now building on that experience and applying it to address materials challenges for SMR and Generation IV Reactors. Lori has taken a leadership role within CNL on the GenerationIV International Forum (GIF), presently serving as Canada’s representative to the Super Critical Water Cooled Reactor System Steering Committee and is working with government and Canadian collaborators to establish a “Team Canada” approach to GIF participation.
Mentors
Gordon Burton has enjoyed a 25-year career with AECL/CNL as a research scientist developing sensors, software tools to make better use of the chemistry and process data at CANDU® stations, and providing secondary side chemistry support to the stations. He is presently using his background in chemistry and physics as the Acting Manager of the Hydrogen Technologies Branch to provide oversight to all research related to hydrogen production, safety, use, and storage, heavy water production, and tritium.
Adrien Couet’s research includes the study of materials degradation in extreme conditions with a focus on current and advanced nuclear reactors. Couet studies how materials, their environment, and the stresses with which they come into contact, tend to couple in ways that are less than fortuitous for the maintenance and safety of a nuclear power plant. At the MaDCoR (Materials Degradation under Corrosion and Radiation) laboratory, Couet and his research group investigate high-temperature corrosion and irradiation effects in materials as well as the design of these materials to better withstand these aggressive conditions.
Massimiliano Fratoni is Xenel Distinguished Associate Professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB). He received a Laurea in Nuclear Engineering from Università di Roma “La Sapienza” (Italy), and a MSc and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining the Nuclear Engineering Department at UCB, he held a Research Scientist position at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a faculty position at The Pennsylvania State University. Prof. Fratoni’s main research interests are in sustainable nuclear energy through advanced reactors and advanced fuel cycles that maximize natural resource utilization and minimize nuclear waste. During his career, Prof. Fratoni has worked on several advanced reactor concepts including molten salt reactors, both solid and liquid fuel, sodium and lead cooled fast reactors, reduced moderation boiling water reactors, accident tolerant fuel and fusion reactors. He also worked on machine learning application in nuclear data and waste repository performance. Professor Fratoni also holds a Principal Engineer position at Kairos Power.
Rui Hu is Manger of Plant System Analysis Group in the Nuclear Science and Engineering Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He currently also serves as Deputy Technical Area Lead for Thermal Fluids under USDOE’s Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation program, and leads the development of an advanced system analysis tool, SAM, for advanced non-light water reactor safety analysis. Hu joined Argonne in 2010 as a post-doctoral appointee right after receiving his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His areas of technical expertise include reactor thermal-hydraulics, advanced reactor safety, and multi-scale multi-physics modeling and simulation methods.
David Hummel is a Research Scientist at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL). He received his Masters and PhD degrees from McMaster University in Engineering Physics. In 2015 he joined the Containment Response Section of what was then the Fuel & Fuel Channel Safety Branch at CNL’s Chalk River site. He has since contributed to the experimental and computational study of containment and radionuclide transport behaviour in support of the CANDU industry, and most recently, to the study of advanced reactor and small modular reactor (SMR) accident phenomenology.
Dr. Hummel has served as project leader, principal investigator, or researcher on multiple projects concerning SMR safety and studies of accident phenomenology within CNL’s Federal Science & Technology program. Dr. Hummel has also represented Canada in International Atomic Energy Agency meetings on advanced reactors and SMR safety, and has contributed to the organization of multiple conferences hosted by the Canadian Nuclear Society.
Sabiq Khan is the Associate Dean, Faculty Relations & Development at Hill and Levene Schools of Business at University of Regina
Changho Lee is the manager of Methods and Software Development Group in the Nuclear Science and Engineering Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from Purdue University. He has over 25 years of experiences in developing neutronics analysis codes and analysis at KAERI (MASTER), Purdue University (PARCS), Westinghouse Electric Co. (ANC v9), and Argonne National laboratory. He joined Argonne in 2006, leading the development of cross section generation code MC2-3 and high-fidelity reactor physics codes PROTEUS and Griffin. His areas of technical expertise include reactor physics simulation and analysis methods, cross section generation methods, and multi-physics modeling and simulation methods.
Gaston Meskens holds master degrees in theoretical physics and nuclear engineering from the University of Ghent (Belgium). He works part-time with the Science and Technology Studies group of the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK•CEN and with the Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of the University of Ghent.
He has twenty+ years of experience in participative and transdisciplinary research related to the ethics of governance of issues such as sustainable development, energy, climate change and radioactive waste management and with the policy processes of the UNFCCC, UNCSD, UN-NPT, and of the research-related activities of the EC.
Since 2006, he is member of the steering committee of the Constituency of Research-oriented Independent NGOs towards the UNFCCC and was chair of the constituency from 2016 to 2018.
In the previous years, he also participated as invited expert in Belgian parliamentary and public hearings on the ethics of risk-inherent technology governance, in several Technical Committees of the IAEA and of the OECD and in UN missions in the frame of sustainable development. At SCK•CEN Gaston Meskens is now working as researcher, writer, lecturer and mediator of dialogue on ethics in relation to science, technology and democratic decision making.
Andrew Morreale is a research scientist at CNL in the Advanced Reactors Directorate. Andrew works primarily in Severe Accident Modelling and Analysis, studying multiple reactor types (e.g. CANDU, BWR, and integral-PWR) and has participated in OECD-NEA projects related to Fukushima Daiichi Accident. Andrew has been at CNL Chalk River for 8 years. Previous to this, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Advanced Fuel Cycles and Safety Analysis at McMaster University. Andrew holds a PhD and Masters in Engineering Physics and Bachelors of Engineering and Management from McMaster University. Andrew is also an EIT with the Professional Engineers of Ontario and the Chair of the Chalk River Branch of the Canadian Nuclear Society.
Adam G. Nelson is a Principal Nuclear Engineer, Nuclear Science and Energy Division, Argonne National Laboratory; Lemont, IL. He holds a BS and MS, Penn State University (2005 and 2009) and PhD, University of Michigan (2014).
Adam is currently working at Argonne National Laboratory with primary duties related to the reactor design of the DOE’s Versatile Test Reactor. Adam is also a member of NASA’s Mars Transportation Assessment Study team with a focus on nuclear thermal propulsion, a long-time Technical Contributor to the OpenMC Monte Carlo software, and the lead developer of ADDER fuel management and depletion software.
Adam previously worked at Naval Reactors Headquarters in Washington, DC from 2006 to 2019. There, he was the Senior Reactor Physicist with responsibilities spanning cross section measurement, reactor physics methods development, new core design, operating fleet support, and spent fuel transportation/handling.
Louis Ortega is an Associate Research Engineer at Texas A&M University
Alex Page is the Canadian Technical Team Lead for the eVinci Micro Reactor at Westinghouse Electric Canada. His technical career has previously focused on Equipment Reliability, Periodic Inspection Programs, Component Condition Assessments, and Fire Protection Design. He has implemented various First of a Kind camera technologies in the CANDU industry related to leak detection campaigns, fire detection, and smoke detection. Alex has provided program and project management across multiple key scopes of work at CANDU facilities.
Alex’s current role is centered on the development and deployment of the eVinci Micro Reactor. He is a leader for SMR implementation in the Canadian market, investigating ways to reduce barriers for all SMRs related to licencing, regulation, and Code and Standard requirements. He is actively engaged with remote community end-users to identify key applications of SMR technology to improve food, water, and energy security across Canada.
Jeffrey Powers is an R&D staff member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He earned a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Jeff’s research focuses on design and analysis of nuclear reactors and fuels. He currently spends most of his time on the US DOE Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) project, serving as the Fuel Design Analysis Lead for the project as well as coordinating ORNL input to activities supporting the VTR Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Jeff has previously worked on thermomechanical fuel performance and neutronics aspects of light water reactors, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors (FHRs), molten salt reactors (MSRs), fusion-fission hybrid energy systems, and space reactors. Recent projects include enhanced accident tolerant fuels, multiphysics modeling, designing an FHR demonstration reactor, and assessing nuclear fuel cycle options.
Paul Romano is a Computational Scientist with a joint appointment in the Computational Science and Nuclear Science and Engineering Divisions at Argonne National Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in Nuclear Science and Engineering in 2013 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After spending two years working at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, he joined Argonne in 2015. Dr. Romano performs research and development in the areas of particle transport, nuclear reactor physics, high-performance computing, multiphysics simulations, and nuclear data. He is the original author and project lead for OpenMC, a community-developed open source framework for Monte Carlo particle transport simulation that is used across national laboratories, industry, and academia.
Cathy Thiriet is the Advanced Fuels & Reactor Physics Branch Manager (acting) at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL). In this role, she manages diverse science and technology activities, resources and capabilities spanning reactor experimental and simulation research in physics, conventional and advanced fuel fabrication technologies and fuel characterization for the current CANDU reactor fleet, research reactor (e.g., SLOWPOKE), and advanced reactor designs, and fuel processing methods for environmental remediation management.
Cathy joined CNL as a Research Scientist 15 years ago. She applied her practical skills and expertise in supervising and contributing to various nuclear safety experiments. For example, she led first-of-a-kind experiments to study the deformation of instrumented CANDU fuel bundle and fuel bundle simulators subjected to temperature transients. She also supervised intentionally defected instrumented fuel element out-reactor tests for assessing in-situ and in real-time the impact of fuel oxidation on the fuel thermal conductivity. More recently, she led the fuel fabrication campaign to refuel the Royal Military College SLOWPOKE-2 research reactor at Kingston, Ontario.
Pavel V. Tsvetkov, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, Texas A&M University. As a faculty member, he has been at A&M since 2005. Dr. Tsvetkov’s research program is focused on novel energy systems meeting global growing needs in sustainable resources, particularly looking for environmentally benign sustainable energy solutions. The project portfolio since 2005 includes direct energy conversion, waste management efforts to dramatically reduce nuclear waste via irradiations in high temperature reactors and fast spectrum systems, novel reactor designs, used fuel options evaluations, and instrumentation and control efforts to develop intelligent autonomous control algorithms and novel sensors, full scope simulators for security assessments, data science and engineering for nuclear security applications, and nuclear criticality safety. Dr. Tsvetkov is a member of ANS, ASME, ASEE, Alpha Nu Sigma and Phi Kappa Phi. He published over 300 papers in peer journals, conference proceedings and reports as well as served as an editor and major contributor for 12 books on energy, environment and nuclear energy. Dr. Tsvetkov has 2 patents pending on micro reactor design and energy conversion.
Dr. Tsvetkov is interested to mentor in all aspects of concept design development including business cases, supply chain, commercialization and technology of both systems and applications.
Metin Yetisir, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories
Ling Zou is a Principal Nuclear Engineer in the Nuclear Science and Engineering Division of Argonne National Laboratory, where he is contributing to a variety of projects mainly in the field of nuclear reactor thermal-hydraulics. At Argonne, he is leading R&D activities to support the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program and ARPA-E’s Modeling-Enhanced Innovations Trailblazing Nuclear Energy Reinvigoration (MEITNER) program. As one of the main code developers of Argonne’s award-winning nuclear reactor safety analysis code, SAM, he has made contributions to SAM code development and its applications in the analyses of various types of advanced reactor designs. He also works with external collaborators from many organizations, including the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC), Kairos Power, HolosGen, University of Michigan and the Penn. State University, etc. Before joining Argonne, he worked at Idaho National Laboratory, where he had led/contributed to the development of many thermal-hydraulics analysis computer codes.
His main research interests include R&D of next-generation reactor system analysis code, reactor safety analysis, thermal-hydraulics analysis to support advanced reactor designs, modeling and simulation of two-phase flow, and numerical methods development in two-phase flow simulations.