International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management 2022 Speaker

Evaristo J. “Tito” Bonano, Ph.D.

Principal Advisor

Nuclear Fuel Cycle Programs at NAC International, Inc.

Tito Bonano is currently Principal Advisor, Nuclear Fuel Cycle Programs at NAC International, Inc. He has nearly 40 years of experience in the nuclear energy fuel cycle, particularly in nuclear waste management. At Sandia National Laboratories, until his retirement in December 2021, Tito was a senior manager leading a multidisciplinary organization conducting R&D projects in both the front end and back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. He played key roles in the initial NRC projects to develop their performance assessment capabilities, the WIPP program, and was a member of the OCRWM leadership team that developed the License Application for the Yucca Mountain Repository, first as licensing manager for the Lead Laboratory for Repository Systems and the subsequently as the Lead Laboratory’s senior program manager.

Based on his own experiences working in the WIPP and Yucca Mountain programs, Tito has had a keen interest in the intersection between the physical sciences and engineering and the policy, social and economic issues related to nuclear energy and nuclear waste management. He was co-founder and co-director of the joint University of Oklahoma – Sandia National Laboratories Center for Energy, Security and Society established in 2013 following several decades of collaborations between the two institutions.

Tito is the winner of two Secretary of Energy Achievement Awards in 2018 and in 2021, and of two Great Minds in STEM’s Hispanic Engineer Awards: Entrepreneur of the Year in 2000 and Lifetime Achievement Award– National Laboratory in 2020.

Tito’s degrees in chemical engineering include a B.S. from the University Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, and M.S. and Ph.D. from Clarkson University.