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Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2026
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Reimagining nuclear materials for the future of medicine
Nuclear medicine has come a long way since Henri Becquerel first observed the penetrating energy of radioactive materials in 1896. Today, technetium-99m alone is used in more than 40 million diagnostic procedures every year—from cardiovascular imaging and bone scans to cancer detection—making it the undisputed workhorse of nuclear medicine. That single statistic tells you something important: An enormous portion of modern diagnostic medicine rests on a surprisingly narrow foundation, one built around a small number of aging research reactors that were never originally designed for continuous isotope production.
UWC 2022 speaker
Xcel Energy
Patrick Burke is Nuclear Vice President Strategy. Responsible for developing the strategy and business plans for the Nuclear Business Unit of Xcel Energy. This includes leading the Innovation, Government and Policy, Transformation, Nuclear Services and used fuel strategies.
He previously held the Nuclear Vice President, Engineering and Technical Services position for Xcel Energy responsible for fleet engineering, capital projects, refueling outages, new fuels and used fuels storage functions.
Prior to that he served as the Vice President Capital Projects leading the fleet capital projects department as well as dry fuels storage and the corporate outage departments.
Patrick received his bachelor science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also holds a BWR Senior Reactor Operator certification, and has been a registered professional engineering in the state of Minnesota, and a Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute.
Last modified July 15, 2022, 8:37am EDT
