ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Sep 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
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.
International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management 2022 Speaker
BS, Masters, and PhD in Nuclear Engineering, North Carolina State University
Presently working on the backend of the nuclear fuel cycle with focus on advanced reactor used/spent fuel treatment activities including: recycling/reprocessing of used nuclear fuel (UNF), conditioning of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) for alignment with disposal waste criteria, and the licensing and safety analyses needed to support the backend of the fuel cycle for these advanced reactors (e.g., spent fuel post-reactor processing facilities, spent fuel post-reactor handling facilities, spent fuel pools, spent fuel storage installations, spent fuel dry storage systems, spent fuel transportation systems, etc.). In addition, continue to advance recycling activities through work on industrial and medical isotope recovery from UNF, optimization of existing processes (e.g., use of voloxidation, advanced gas treatment processes), separation of long-lived and repository burdensome isotopes for transmutation, and the continued pursuit of regulatory clarity for reprocessing in the U.S.
Professional Engineer, Nuclear Engineering, NC.
ANS:
Vice-Chair of EPRI’s Extended Storage Collaboration Program (ESCP) Fuels sub-committee.
Member of Nuclear Energy Institute’s (NEI):
Last modified October 28, 2022, 1:30pm MST
