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Conference Spotlight
2026 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
January 2026
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December 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
November 2025
Latest News
What’s the most difficult question you’ve been asked as a maintenance instructor?
Blye Widmar
"Where are the prints?!"
This was the final question in an onslaught of verbal feedback, comments, and critiques I received from my students back in 2019. I had two years of instructor experience and was teaching a class that had been meticulously rehearsed in preparation for an accreditation visit. I knew the training material well and transferred that knowledge effectively enough for all the students to pass the class. As we wrapped up, I asked the students how they felt about my first big system-level class, and they did not hold back.
“Why was the exam from memory when we don’t work from memory in the plant?” “Why didn’t we refer to the vendor documents?” “Why didn’t we practice more on the mock-up?” And so on.
2022 ANS Annual Meeting
Nuclear Engineering Ph.D. Candidate
University of Tennessee
Alyssa Hayes (she/her) is a Nuclear Engineering Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Tennessee, where she is researching impurity transport in the plasma boundary of fusion reactors. She is a member of the Fusion Energy Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where she takes advantage of high-performance computing resources to simulate wall erosion and impurity migration.
She is now a leader of the Computational Research Access Network (CRANE), a national student-led workshop series that teaches computational skills to students from underrepresented groups in plasma physics and nuclear engineering.
Her advocacy efforts began in 2016 when she joined forces with other nuclear advocates to help save the Clinton and Quad Cities NPPs. She testified in 2021 before Illinois Congressmembers to help save Byron and Dresden, and again in 2022 in a push to lift the Illinois moratorium on new nuclear construction.
Alyssa earned her B.S. in Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering from the University of Illinois in 2019. She continues to be an active member of ANS, WIN, CRANE, and Generation Atomic, and she aspires to become an ANS Congressional Fellow in the future.
Last modified April 14, 2022, 5:50am PDT
