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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Empowering the next generation: ANS’s newest book focuses on careers in nuclear energy
A new career guide for the nuclear energy industry is now available: The Nuclear Empowered Workforce by Earnestine Johnson. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience across 16 nuclear facilities, Johnson offers a practical, insightful look into some of the many career paths available in commercial nuclear power. To mark the release, Johnson sat down with Nuclear News for a wide-ranging conversation about her career, her motivation for writing the book, and her advice for the next generation of nuclear professionals.
When Johnson began her career at engineering services company Stone & Webster, she entered a field still reeling from the effects of the Three Mile Island incident in 1979, nearly 15 years earlier. Her hiring cohort was the first group of new engineering graduates the company had brought on since TMI, a reflection of the industry-wide pause in nuclear construction. Her first long-term assignment—at the Millstone site in Waterford, Conn., helping resolve design issues stemming from TMI—marked the beginning of a long and varied career that spanned positions across the country.
Edward J. Hennelly was the 25th president of the American Nuclear Society (ANS). Ed joined ANS in 1963 and served in a number of capacities. He served as technical program chairman for several conferences, as program chairman for the Isotopes and Radiation Division from 1969-71, and as chairman of the ANS National Program Committee from 1971- 73; chaired the ANS Savannah River Section in 1968, and served on the ANS Board of Directors (1971-74) and Executive Committee (1972-74). He was named a Fellow of ANS in 1968.
Edward Hennelly was born on March 29, 1923. His undergraduate studies at Union College were interrupted by World War II, when he entered the Navy officer training program. During his tour of duty, he was sent to Harvard University and MIT for radar studies. Hennelly would later return to academia and apply the relatively new sciences of radar and microwaves to his graduate studies at Princeton University. While there, he became involved with a project sponsored by the Office of Naval Research to use microwave equipment to measure the dielectric properties of organic liquids.
After receiving his doctorate, he began working for Du Pont in Wilmington, Delaware as a research chemist in the Polychemicals Department. This job led to his introduction to nuclear energy when he was selected to travel to Argonne National Laboratory for training on nuclear-related projects in order to support Du Pont’s work on the Savannah River Plant. His initial assignment was to work on the design of the CP-5 reactor.
Following that, he returned to Wilmington until Du Pont transferred him to Savannah River in 1953, where he worked on a number of reactor designs and safety analyses. Hennelly’s early work on achieving high sustained neutron flux in production reactors earned Savannah River a plaque from the Atomic Energy Commission.
In 1975, he was appointed to the South Carolina Nuclear Advisory Council, and he became its chairman in 1976. He was a member of President Bush’s transition team following his election in 1988.
He was also a member of the American Chemical Society and Sigma Xi.
Hennelley earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Union College and a doctorate in physical chemistry from Princeton University in 1949.
Edward J. Hennelley passed away on April 19, 1997.
Read Nuclear News from July 1979 for more on Ed Hennelly.
