The Young Members Group invites you to a special in-person edition of Rad Talks featuring Kathryn Huff, Associate Professor, Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Rad Talks is a series designed exclusively for ANS young and student members to discuss leadership philosophies, glean job advice, and hear stories from leaders in the nuclear community.

The session will be moderated by YMG Chair Ishita Trivedi, Computational Scientist, Idaho National Laboratory.

About
Dr. Kathryn Huff

Kathryn is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From May 2021 to May 2024, she took a leave of absence from UIUC to hold multiple positions in the U.S. Department of Energy, including that of Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy. Before joining UIUC, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow with both the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium and the Berkeley Institute for Data Science at the University of California - Berkeley. As a PhD student, she helped to reimagine the GENIUSv2 fuel cycle simulator and became the primary developer of the Cyclus simulator in its initial phase. In addition, she collaborated with the Systems Analysis group at Idaho National Laboratory to develop the Fuel Cycle Simulator Software Requirements that defined the goals and expectations for the Next Generation Fuel Cycle Simulator. She received her PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in August 2013 as a student of Professor Paul P.H. Wilson. Her undergraduate degree was in Physics from the University of Chicago. Her PhD dissertation and postdoctoral work both focused on development of software for nuclear engineering applications such as the Cyclus simulator, PyNE, and extensions to MOOSE. She is particularly interested in robust modeling and simulation of advanced reactors emphasizing scientific software engineering best practices.