ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2025
Nuclear Technology
June 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS-2023) Plenary SPeaker
Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Project Manager
Deputy Project Manager
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Matt Wallace was the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Project Manager and Deputy Project Manager. He initiated the concept work for the mission, and led the development and implementation team. The spacecraft and Perseverance rover launched in July of 2020 and landed in February 2021, beginning its surface mission of in-situ science and technology experiments, and collecting samples for return to Earth by a future mission. Perseverance is the fifth Mars rover on which Matt has worked. He began as a power systems engineer on the Mars Pathfinder Sojourner vehicle, led the assembly and test team for the twin Spirit and Opportunity missions, which landed in 2004, and held the Flight System Manager position on the 2012 Curiosity mission. He has worked on other programmatic and planetary missions capacities at JPL, and as a program manager for Earth-observing satellites in the aerospace industry. Matt graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland with a B.S. in systems engineering, and received an M.S. in electrical engineering from Caltech. He served in the US Navy fast attack submarine fleet.
Last modified December 5, 2022, 2:31pm MST
