Organizer Biographies

Co-chair

Emma Houston

Emma is a first-year graduate student in nuclear engineering studying under Dr. Sandra Bogetic. She graduate from Tennessee with a B.S. in nuclear engineering in 2022. Her undergraduate research consisted of both nuclear forensics and safeguard applications of neutrino detectors. She co-oped at Southern Nuclear Company at Vogtle 3 and 4 and interned at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. She is an active member of the American Nuclear Society and women in nuclear.

Co-chair

Katy Worrell

Katy is a senior majoring in nuclear engineering and minoring in mathematics. She currently performs undergraduate research in criticality safety topics under Dr. Vladimir Sobes. Since December 2020 she has worked as a Nuclear Criticality Safety Intern at BWXT Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc. in Erwin, TN, during breaks from school. She served as secretary of the UTK ANS Student Chapter from 2020-2022, and is the president of the Chapter for the 2022-2023 academic year. She is also a member of the ANS NCSD Communications Committee. For general conference questions, you can reach her at kworrell@vols.utk.edu.

Communications Committee Director

Sydney Copp

Sydney graduated from the University of Tennessee Knoxville in May 2021 with a major in Nuclear Engineering and a minor in Materials Science & Engineering. Now, she is entering her second year of graduate school in UTK's NE Department as a Ph.D. candidate working under Dr. Steven Zinkle. Sydney is also involved in the department through serving as the Graduate Representative for our ANS Chapter, as well as a member of WIN.

DE&I Committee Director

Anthony Tom

Anthony graduated with a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Tennessee in 2022. This fall, he will be continuing his studies into computational material science with Dr. Wirth. His activities on campus include UT's chapters of the American Nuclear Society and National Society of Black Engineers. He can be contacted for DEI questions at atom1@vols.utk.edu

Finance Committee Director

Sophie Hitson

Sophie is a senior in Nuclear Engineering at UTK and has interests in nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security. She has completed internships with LANL and NRC. At UTK, she works as a Tickle College of Engineering Ambassador and as an undergraduate research assistant. For finance questions, please contact sophie@vols.utk.edu.

Logistics Committee Director

Alyssa Hayes

Alyssa is a Ph.D. candidate working for Professor Brian Wirth in the NE Department here at UT, working on impurity transport simulations for magnetically confined fusion applications. She earned her B.S. in the same field from the University of Illinois in 2019. Alyssa continues to be an active member of ANS and WIN, and she aspires to become an ANS Congressional Fellow in the future.