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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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Latest News
The RAIN scale: A good intention that falls short
Radiation protection specialists agree that clear communication of radiation risks remains a vexing challenge that cannot be solved solely by finding new ways to convey technical information.
Earlier this year, an article in Nuclear News described a new radiation risk communication tool, known as the Radiation Index, or, RAIN (“Let it RAIN: A new approach to radiation communication,” NN, Jan. 2025, p. 36). The authors of the article created the RAIN scale to improve radiation risk communication to the general public who are not well-versed in important aspects of radiation exposures, including radiation dose quantities, units, and values; associated health consequences; and the benefits derived from radiation exposures.
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
