Interview by Katy Huff

Benoit Forget, associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was honored with the 2013 ANS Landis Young Member Engineering Achievement Award. The award recognizes outstanding achievement for effectively applying engineering knowledge to yield a new principle, concept, design, safety improvement, method of analysis, or product used in the nuclear energy enterprise.

Groups such as the ANS Young Members Group and the North American Young Generation in Nuclear, which empower a new generation of nuclear students and professionals, were recently joined by a small new sister organization, the WMS Next Generation Leadership Committee. The new organization was born during an informal meeting in February between organization leaders and young participants at the Waste Management Conference (presented by Waste Management Symposia [WMS] in Phoenix, Arizona).

Recently I had the honor of joining the "Rising Stars in Nuclear Science and Engineering Symposium" at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was a unique symposium, inviting a dozen Ph.D. candidates and early postdoctoral fellows to showcase their research, and to engage in rich discussions of early career strategies and challenges with exceptional researchers in the field.