2024 ANS Student Conference

Dr. Lauren Garrison

Senior Materials Scientist

Commonwealth Fusion Systems

Dr. Lauren Garrison is a Senior Materials Scientist at Commonwealth Fusion Systems. She oversees materials development and testing projects for the ARC fusion power plant as well as solving near-term materials challenges for the SPARC experimental fusion device. Her areas of expertise include neutron irradiation of materials, refractory materials as plasma facing components, plasma-material interactions, and composite development. She previously spent 9 years at Oak Ridge National Laboratory during which time she was a Weinberg Fellow and group leader of the Advanced Nuclear Materials Group. Dr. Garrison holds a bachelor’s from the Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master’s and PhD from the Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the Chair of the Fusion Energy Division of the American Nuclear Society.