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Division Spotlight
Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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
July 2025
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June 2025
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Latest News
Argonne creates new methodology for digital twins
Hu
Argonne National Laboratory has added a new twist to digital twin technology for research into nuclear energy. According to Rui Hu, a principal nuclear engineer at Argonne, “Our digital twin technology introduces a significant step toward understanding and managing advanced nuclear reactors, enabling us to predict and respond to changes with the required speed and accuracy.”
The research of Hu and his colleagues, “Development of Whole System Digital Twins for Advanced Reactors: Leveraging Graph Neural Networks and SAM Simulations,” was published in the American Nuclear Society journal Nuclear Technology.
Virtual representation: A digital twin technology is an accurate virtual representation of a complex system. It is updated with real-time data from sensors applied to the physical system, such as a nuclear reactor.
The American Nuclear Society is committed to hosting meetings that advance knowledge and understanding. In doing so, we aim to include diverse voices and to ensure that our events are inclusive. All attendees are valued equally for their skills and abilities and each person is respected similarly for their unique perspectives and experiences. Please consider this as you put your best self forward in organizing and conducting panel sessions.
Session chairs and session organizers play an integral role in the development of technical content at the society’s national meetings, and therefore the overall technical quality of the meeting. These summary guidelines are provided to assist panel session chairs and organizers. For panels, the session organizer generally also serves as the session chair.
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WHAT IS A PANEL SESSION?
A panel session is when a diverse group of experts are brought together to have a balanced discussion or debate on a current topic of interest or to inform the audience on recent updates within the nuclear community. The format is defined by the session chair to maximize the objectives of the session – to allow the audience interaction with the panel. The duration of the panel can vary within the allotted time periods for sessions.
PANEL VERSUS PAPER SESSION
Panel sessions should bring together leading experts on the topic to interact freely with one another and the audience to exchange information and ideas. Usually, panels cover topics that are more recent or are the subject of current news, material that is more rooted in policy than technical details, or technical material that is not ripe for published papers but nevertheless important to discuss. Panel sessions should not turn into paper sessions without the papers. Informal settings with less-scripted discussions led by a moderator or facilitator are more interesting and allow more opportunities for audience participation and interaction.
A technical paper session can be a regular contributed session where authors submit papers following the call for papers or an invited paper session, where authors are officially invited by a signed letter from a session chair to submit a paper. Any paper not officially invited or a paper “stimulated” by a session organizer is a contributed paper. These paper sessions should contain no less than three papers and usually no more than five depending on the time available according to the program. Authors are then asked to present for up to fifteen minutes followed by five minutes for questions and answers. For the Annual and Winter Meetings, authors who present in a paper session are required to submit a summary to be published in the Transactions of the American Nuclear Society publication following the meeting.
Suggested panel format options
Session chair welcomes participants, provides ground rules for the session, presents a brief overview of the session topic, and introduces each panelist in order of their presentations.
Session chair welcomes participants, provides ground rules for the session, presents a brief overview of the session topic, and introduces each panelist or the panelists take a few minutes to introduce themselves.
Each panelist gives their presentation. Note: The presentations should cover high-level points as opposed to highly detailed technical talks that would normally accompany a paper.
Session chair moderates an interactive panel discussion with questions or comments from the audience as part of the exchange. The questions that are planned are shared with the panelists in advance so they may have time to prepare some remarks. Note: Panelists are not required to prepare presentation slides.
Session Chair facilitates Q/As. The Q/A should occupy at least 1/3 the time of the session.
Session Chair concludes session summarizing any overall themes emerging from the discussion and by thanking the panelists and the audience.
Session Chair concludes session by thanking the panelists and the audience.
Note: The exact length of a panel session will be determined during the room scheduling meeting when the preliminary program is made based on room availability.
Topic submission timeline
How is a Panel Session Approved?
Speaker solicitation
Speaker Registration Fees
Solicited Speakers
Solicited speakers are required to pay for their meeting registration. Typically, panel participants will be ‘solicited speakers’ as opposed to formally invited speakers. Communicate early to panel speakers that they will be required to register for the conference (either the full or one-day registration fee). ANS staff will assist with the communications to the speakers through the submission system.
Formally Invited Speakers
Formally invited speakers are provided with a one-day compensation for their registration fee. These are provided to speakers who are considered essential to the make-up of the panel but are not able to fund the registration fee. Each Division is allotted 5 one-day comps or one full comp for speakers. Session Chairs need to receive permission from their Division Chair and Division Program Chair prior to offering the comp to the speaker and request the signed letter from their Division Chair with further instructions for the speaker’s registration. Only attendees who have been formally invited by the Division Chair via signed invitation letter may qualify for a complimentary registration.
Speaker and participant selection
Slide Presentations and Biographies
Registration desk
Introductions
Question and answer sessions
Last modified April 6, 2022, 1:55pm CDT