My Story: Alan Levin, ANS member since 1980

My interest in nuclear physics led naturally to learning about nuclear power, sparked in particular by Baltimore Gas and Electric’s decision in the mid-1960s to build a nuclear power plant at Calvert Cliffs.

A few years later, my precocious adolescent decision became reality when I was admitted to MIT. I initially planned to major in physics, but as I learned more about engineering, I decided that my interests would be better served in that field. MIT did not at that time have an undergraduate degree in nuclear engineering; I chose mechanical engineering and set my sights on a graduate degree in nuclear engineering.

After working three summers at BG&E, including one at Calvert Cliffs while it was under construction, I applied to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where I spent the summers after my undergraduate senior year and first year of graduate school working on reactor safety research.

My doctoral research was part of a large Department of Energy project on fast breeder reactor safety that also involved several national laboratories, including ORNL, and reactor vendors. I met one of the ORNL representatives on the project during my second summer at the lab, which led to a job offer on the staff of the Breeder Reactor Safety Program, which I began in 1980, working on liquid sodium thermal hydraulics.

I joined the MIT student section of the American Nuclear Society and upgraded to full membership immediately after completing my doctorate. I also expressed an interest in getting involved in ANS governance and was assigned to the program committee of the new Thermal Hydraulics Division—the first of many positions I have held in the Society. A couple of years later, I passed the examinations for licensure as a Professional Engineer.

The cancelation of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project in 1983 resulted in a change of focus in the DOE’s breeder reactor R&D effort, and the ORNL program began to wind down. However, the DOE had established a joint management office with the Electric Power Research Institute: the Consolidated Management Office for the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor, or CoMO, in Naperville, Ill.

The office staff included assignees from several national laboratories, and I applied and was selected to be ORNL’s representative in 1985. At CoMO, I learned about research project management and technical areas beyond thermal hydraulics. But my assignment was cut short by the decision to close the Naperville office and move CoMO to EPRI’s offices in Palo Alto, Calif. ORNL declined to relocate me to the West Coast, and I decided not to return to Oak Ridge.

As I started looking for a new job, good fortune struck via a phone call I received from one of my grad school classmates, who had joined the nuclear engineering/health physics (NE/HP) faculty at Georgia Tech. He asked if I’d be interested in applying for a faculty position. (The NE/HP program was part of the School of Mechanical Engineering.) I sent in my application, went to Atlanta for an interview, and subsequently was offered—and accepted—the position of associate professor in 1986.

I enjoyed teaching and became the faculty advisor for Georgia Tech’s ANS student section. However, the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 had had an impact on both NE/HP program enrollment and the availability of research funds, and it became clear by 1990 that there was little chance that I would be able to get tenure. Once again, it was time to look for a new job, and once again, luck was on my side.

I had gotten married, and our first child was born around the time I started my job search. My wife, who had recently completed her doctorate in epidemiology, was a federal employee in Atlanta, and with my parents still in Baltimore, looking for a job in the Baltimore-Washington area seemed the natural thing to do. After seeing an advertisement in Nuclear News for a position in the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, I sent in an application.

At the ANS Annual Meeting in 1990, I stopped by the NRC booth to see if I could find out how my application was doing. There I met the technical assistant to the director of the Division of System Technology in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, who told me about a new job in the Reactor Systems Branch involving the review of advanced light water reactors. I told him about my background, and he thought I was well-qualified for the position, which I was ultimately offered and accepted.

I spent nine years in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, primarily reviewing the testing programs that Westinghouse and General Electric were using to support the development and certification of their passive reactor designs. When that work started to wind down, I began looking for other opportunities at the NRC and was surprised one day to get a call from the office of the newly appointed chair, Richard Meserve, asking if I’d be interested in interviewing for a position on his staff. I accepted, of course, and ultimately I was offered the position of technical assistant for reactors.

That job was unquestionably the best experience of my career, combining technical and policy-related work, along with travel to several nuclear power plants in the U.S. and overseas. Meserve’s tenure at the NRC ran from October 1999 to March 2003. When he resigned, I joined the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research as a technical assistant to the office director, where I stayed for two years.

In 2005, I left the NRC and joined Framatome ANP—soon to become Areva NP—as a senior engineer in Regulatory Affairs, working on the effort to certify the EPR design in the U.S. I also contributed to Areva’s development, in cooperation with Mitsubishi, of a conceptual design for a fast reactor and recycling installation as part of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. Unfortunately, the EPR design certification effort became bogged down, and I decided to look for other opportunities.

In 2013, I accepted a job in the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Safety as the manager of the Nuclear Safety Research and Development Program, which focuses on the safety of the DOE’s nuclear facilities. I remained in that position until I retired from full-time work in 2019.

Since retiring, I have served as a consultant on a number of projects, including the Technology Inclusive Content of Application Project (TICAP), which developed guidance for elements of a risk-informed, performance-based alternative approach for advanced reactor licensing applications. But most of my time is spent enjoying retirement, including spending time with our children and grandchildren.

My story would not be complete without addressing my ANS activities. Since becoming involved in ANS governance in 1980, I have served on a wide variety of committees, as a division officer and chair, as a local section chair, and was elected to a term on the Society’s Board of Directors.

My most enduring activity has been as a mentor to ANS student members who participated in the Washington Internships for Students of Engineering (WISE) Program, a summer enrichment technology policy initiative. Shortly after I joined the NRC in 1990, I was introduced (at an ANS conference) by a mutual friend to Gail Marcus, who was managing ANS’s participation in the WISE Program, and she asked if I would be interested in working with her. I was happy to do so and continued my involvement with WISE until 2023. During that time, I mentored approximately 60 ANS WISE interns and have been pleased to see many of them go on to graduate studies (some at MIT) and to nuclear-related employment. Overall, ANS has played an important role in my professional life, and I look forward to continued engagement with the Society.

We welcome ANS members with long careers in the community to submit their own stories so that the personal history of nuclear power can be captured. For information on submitting your stories, contact nucnews@ans.org.