People

“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.

Young members have always been an asset to the American Nuclear Society, attending the Annual and Winter Meetings; joining Society divisions, groups, and student sections; and leading their own events and webinars. ANS would like to highlight some of its young members for their contributions to bringing nuclear energy to the larger world beyond our industry.

The seven new members of the ANS Board of Directors began their terms at the end of the 2023 ANS Annual Meeting. The newest members include the vice president/president-elect, four U.S. members elected to three-year terms, one non-U.S. member of the Board, and a student member. Get to know a little about the new ANS leadership below.

Robert P. Martin and Thomas E. Roberts have been appointed to four-year terms on the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced on July 20.

When Ken Petersen is asked what he sees as the biggest challenges facing nuclear today and in the future, he immediately turns the question around. The 69th president of the American Nuclear Society prefers to focus on the positives of nuclear power instead of dwelling on the biggest challenges facing nuclear’s future prospects. That’s because there’s a lot to celebrate within the nuclear community—especially recently.

Most everything is trending up—from advanced technologies such as SMRs and microreactors to the promise of fusion energy to new ways of creating medical isotopes to progress in space exploration. “There’s huge momentum for nuclear right now,” Petersen said. “We're getting support from the environmentalist community and from legislation. I see it as a huge opportunity for us to continue to grow. It’s an exciting time. And it’s not just the U.S. It’s worldwide, too.”

Kennedy

Environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the 69-year-old son of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, has launched a campaign for the 2024 Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, and he has been voicing his views on a wide range of issues in numerous interviews and podcasts.

Kennedy spoke with tech mogul Elon Musk in one recent online discussion, a roughly two-hour livestreamed event hosted by Musk on the Twitter Spaces platform on June 5 (and later posted on YouTube). Titled “Reclaiming Democracy,” the event, which was moderated by tech investor and Musk’s friend David Sacks, garnered 2.6 million listeners, according to the tally on the recording posted on Kennedy’s Twitter page.

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.

Wharton

Effective today, American Nuclear Society member Art Wharton has been named business area president for Studsvik Scandpower Group. Wharton joined Studsvik in 2017 as a vice president and has held the role of acting president of the Studsvik Scandpower Business Area since October 6 of last year.

"Art Wharton will play an important role in shaping the future of the Scandpower business through his knowledge, experience, and his broad industry network,” said Camilla Hoflund, president and chief executive officer at Studsvik. “I look forward to the further development of our ability to benefit the nuclear energy market with Scandpower's software, and services."

The American Nuclear Society 2023 Annual Meeting will kick off on June 11 in Indianapolis, Ind., and will run through June 14. ANS has named the recipients of six awards that will be presented at the meeting. Five new Fellows will also be honored at the opening plenary session. Additionally, the Tuesday's plenary session will include the presentation of five presidential citations and a recognition and show of appreciation for Steven Arndt, ANS's outgoing president.

At the Nuclear Energy Institute’s Nuclear Energy Assembly, held this year in Washington, D.C., the Henry DeWolf Smyth Nuclear Statesman Award was presented on May 17 to Mark Peters, Battelle’s executive vice president for national laboratory management and operations.

Thirty teams of players participated in the 21st annual Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness (CNTA) Charity Golf Tournament at the Houndslake Country Club in Aiken, S.C. The tournament, held on on May 12, raised net proceeds of about $23,000, which the nonprofit organization will use to educate the public about issues related to nuclear energy. In addition, more than $700 in donations were raised for the group’s community gift card program.

The deadline to apply for the Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship has been extended to June 5. The American Nuclear Society invites its members to apply for the fellowship to help the Society fulfill its strategic goal of enhancing nuclear public policy. Applications and all required materials are now due to ANS no later than June 5 by 11:59 p.m. EDT. Don't pass up this important opportunity to work on energy legislation in Congress as a representative of ANS.

Meredith Angwin

When my book Shorting the Grid was published in 2020, many described it as “alarmist.” Most people in the United States took grid reliability for granted. Sure, there were always power outages during storms, but weird things like “rolling blackouts” only happened in California.

Public perception is changing, however. Part of this change is due to the major February 2021 blackout in Texas, as well as the grid emergencies during December 2022. People became aware that their own grid could have problems, and not just the usual power-line-fails-in-a-snowstorm type of problems. For example, last December, the service areas for Duke Energy and the Tennessee Valley Authority in the southeastern U.S. experienced rolling blackouts. Grid operators had to take emergency measures. The Midwest, Texas, and New England experienced near misses with grid trouble. In other words, most of the country was at risk of rolling blackouts due to one relatively short winter storm.

Hageman

Cole

Sarah Elizabeth Cole of Boise State University and Abbey Hageman of the University of Nevada–Reno were recently selected as the American Nuclear Society participants in the 2023 Washington Internships for Students in Engineering (WISE) program. Cole is majoring in materials science and engineering and expects to graduate in the spring of 2025; Hageman is majoring in materials engineering with minors in mechanical engineering and mathematics and has a graduation date of spring 2024. These two scholars will join students sponsored by other engineering organizations for nine weeks throughout the summer.

Physicist Andrea “Annie” Kritcher’s dedication to fusion target design has earned her a spot on the TIME100 Most Influential People list for 2023. Today, Kritcher and 99 other individuals on that list—among them Elon Musk, King Charles, Judy Blume, Patrick Mahomes, Beyoncé, Lionel Messi, Janet Yellen, and MrBeast—are being honored at the TIME100 Summit and Gala at the Lincoln Center in New York City.

Student members are the future of the American Nuclear Society, and ANS believes in the importance of supporting students those who have shown academic, service, and leadership excellence as they navigate their early careers. Robert Olsen, now a nuclear security officer with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, was one such beneficiary.

The 2023 American Nuclear Society election is underway. All ANS members are eligible to vote on the open leadership positions. To help members get to know who is in the running, Nuclear Newswire published an article spotlighting the candidates for the ANS vice president and the treasurer positions: ans.org/news/article-4775. Completed ballots must be submitted by 1:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, April 11.

Grace Stanke

Despite nuclear power producing 10 percent of energy globally, it seems sometimes that ours is a world in which nuclear does not exist. We all have our own lives, our own passions, and our own separate interests—each of which in turn can feel like a world of its own. For example, I competitively water ski, and rarely does nuclear engineering come up during water skiing tournaments. Nuclear science is a major part of my life and my world—but it is not the only piece. Many of my other worlds have no intersection with nuclear science.

One of my worlds is my involvement in the Miss America Organization. I previously have shared stories about my experience as Miss Wisconsin, including using my platform to talk about nuclear with various individuals. Part of this role was competing for Miss America 2023, a title and position I was honored to win on December 15, 2022.

Paris Ortiz-Wines

“Nuclear is finding its way into real acceptance and enthusiasm, and that’s really exciting.” So said secretary of energy Jennifer Granholm at the COP27 climate conference last November.

For the past 65 years, humanity has harnessed the power of the atom. Since the grid connection of the world’s first commercial nuclear plant in 1957, nuclear has been an unsung hero in providing reliable, clean energy for generations. Nuclear is the world’s fourth-largest source of energy and the second-largest low-carbon source of energy, per Our World in Data.

And yet, it wasn’t until September of 2021, when it became increasingly clear that the world was entering an energy crisis, that nuclear found its way back into the spotlight. Five months later, with the invasion of Ukraine, countries dependent on Russian gas found themselves in a precarious and costly position.