Appendix B

Panelists’ Biographies

AMY HALLORAN is director of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Grid Modernization Program at Sandia National Laboratories. The 300+ staff, students, and technologists in the program perform fundamental and applied R&D to create a safe, secure, and resilient energy future for the nation by developing an advanced electric grid with reliable resources and storage; enhancing the safety, security, safeguards, and economic viability of nuclear energy; and advancing the science and engineering of nuclear waste management. Previously, she led Sandia’s R&D program in wind, solar, and geothermal energy and waterpower to improve the reliability, reduce the cost, and decrease the regulatory burden of renewable energy. Ms. Halloran joined Sandia in 2011 as manager of the Geophysics and Atmospheric Science Department, a team developing leading-edge technical solutions for customers in nuclear threat detection and oil and gas extraction, and she oversaw Sandia’s climate measurement work on the North Slope of Alaska. Prior to joining Sandia, she was a vice president at CH2M Hill in its environmental business line. She is a past president of the New Mexico Engineering Foundation and the Society of American Military Engineers’ Albuquerque Post and is the recipient of the New Mexico Technology Council’s Women in Technology Award (2019). Ms. Halloran is a registered professional engineer. She earned a BS in chemical engineering from Virginia Tech and an MS in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

SARAH KURTZ (NAE) is a professor at the University of California, Merced, where she is working both to help the university grow and to support the energy transition through a variety of studies, including a current study on long-duration energy storage. Previously, she served more than 30 years at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. Dr. Kurtz is known for her contributions to developing multijunction, GaInP/GaAs solar cells, supporting the concentrator photovoltaic (PV) industry, and leading efforts on PV performance and reliability. Her work has been recognized with a jointly received Dan David Prize (2007), the Cherry Award (2012), and the C3E Lifetime Achievement Award (2016). She was elected to the NAE in 2020 for contributions to the development of GaInP/GaAs photovoltaic cells and leadership in solar cell reliability and quality. Dr. Kurtz earned her BA in chemistry and physics from Manchester College (1979) and PhD in chemical physics from Harvard University (1985).

KATHRYN A. McCARTHY (NAE) joined the Oak Ridge National Laboratory after three years as vice president for science and technology and laboratory director for the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. She previously held a variety of engineering and leadership roles at Idaho National Laboratory, including director of domestic programs in its Nuclear Science and Technology Directorate, director of the Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program Technical Integration Office, and national technical director for the Systems Analysis Campaign for the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy’s Fuel Cycle R&D Program. Dr. McCarthy began her career in fusion technology with a focus on liquid metal blanket designs. She was a participant in the US DOE US-USSR Young Scientist program, which included working at the Efremov Institute in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), the Latvian Academy of Sciences in Riga, and the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow. Dr. McCarthy was elected to the NAE in 2019 for leadership in research and data analysis in support of licensing extensions for light water nuclear reactors. She has received numerous awards and recognitions including two American Nuclear Society (ANS) presidential citations, the Fusion Power Associates Leadership Award (2022),

the ITER US Home Team Leadership Award (1996), and the David Rose Award for Excellence in Fusion Engineering (1994). She served on the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (1999–2013) and the US ITER Technical Advisory Committee (2010–13) and is an ANS fellow. Dr. McCarthy earned her BS from the University of Arizona and her MS and PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles, all in nuclear engineering.

JOSÉ N. REYES JR. (NAE) is cofounder and chief technology officer of NuScale Power and professor emeritus in the School of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Oregon State University. He has more than 40 years of experience covering nuclear reactor regulation (USNRC), academia, and nuclear reactor design and commercialization. He is an internationally recognized expert on passive safety systems, test facility scaling and design, and small modular reactors. He is the originator of the dynamical system scaling method and a coinventor on over 110 patents granted or pending in 20 countries. Dr. Reyes has received several national awards including the Nuclear Energy Advocate Award (2013), American Nuclear Society Thermal Hydraulic Division Technical Achievement Award (2014), Nuclear Infrastructure Council Trailblazer Award (2017), and ANS Walter Zinn Medal (2021). He is the author of numerous journal articles, technical reports, and two book chapters, and has given lectures and keynote addresses to professional nuclear organizations in the US, Europe, and Asia. He is a fellow of the American Nuclear Society. He was elected to the NAE in 2018 for innovations in small modular nuclear reactor design, nuclear safety, entrepreneurship, and education. Dr. Reyes received a BS from the University of Florida and an MS and PhD from the University of Maryland, all in nuclear engineering.

GAVIN P. TOWLER (NAE) is vice president and chief technology officer of both Honeywell Performance Materials & Technologies (PMT) and Honeywell UOP. Honeywell PMT is a global leader in providing customers with high-performance specialty materials, process technologies, and materials for petroleum refining, petrochemical production, and natural gas processing as well as products, services, and solutions for industrial process automation. Dr. Towler has 30 years of experience of process and product design in the chemicals and fuels industries. He holds 77 US patents and is coauthor of Chemical Engineering Design, a textbook on process design.

Additionally, he is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University and the National University of Singapore, where he helps teach the senior design classes. He is a chartered engineer and fellow of the Institute of Chemical Engineers and AIChE. He was elected to the NAE in 2015 for process designs for commercial petrochemicals and for leadership in refining and chemical research. He received a BA and MEng in chemical engineering from Cambridge University and a PhD from UC Berkeley.

DEANNE BELL is an engineer, television host, and entrepreneur. Her television hosting credits include PBS, ESPN, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, DIY Network, and CNBC’s Make Me a Millionaire Inventor. She is the founder and CEO of Future Engineers, an education technology company that engages students in online contests and challenges. Future Engineers’ inaugural competition, developed with the ASME Foundation and NASA, produced historic achievements including the first student-designed 3D print in space, and her company was selected by NASA to host the Mars 2020 “Name the Rover” contest. Ms. Bell worked at Raytheon for three years as an optomechanical engineer, initially focused on packaging FLIR into a helicopter-mounted gimbal, involving redesign of the afocal telescope and packaging of the cryocooled imager and CCD camera. She then worked for other R&D programs at the company, including as head of the mechanical design and build of a synthetic aperture ladar (SALTI) optical test bench. She earned a BS in mechanical engineering at Washington University, St. Louis, and is the 2019 Young Alumni Award recipient for its McKelvey School of Engineering. She is also the featured interviewee in the fall 2019 issue of the NAE’s The Bridge.