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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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
September 2025
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October 2025
Latest News
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.
Plenary Session
Friday, April 5, 2024|8:00–9:50AM EDT|Eric J. Barron Innovation Hub Room 603
Session Chair:
Jonathan Balog (Penn State University)
Session Organizer:
Speakers
Lisa MarshallANS Vice President 2023-2024
Sola TalabiSenior ConsultantPittsburgh Technical
Oscar PratSenior Director, AP1000® Construction Support Services Westinghouse Electric Company
It's no secret that building new nuclear power plants in the United States has been a challenging experience. After construction began over a decade ago for Vogtle Units 3 & 4, both units are now online and connected to the grid. Given the energy and resources being invested into reactors of all shapes and sizes, delays on this scale must be avoided as much as possible given the economic costs as well as clean energy goals that must be met. Insights from past and present nuclear plant construction efforts must be applied in a coherent and meaningful way to mitigate or prevent the issues seen previously. This plenary panel aims to dig up, and dig through, some of the historical context of cost/schedule overruns, new issues that were encountered with the AP1000® projects at Vogtle, and how community engagement has contributed to nuclear power project cancellations as well as premature closures. Together, these lessons learned will help inform future construction efforts across the United States, regardless of the reactor being built!
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Attachment — Opening Plenary Biographies
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