News
Dr. Dale Klein, UT Austin Professor and former Commissioner of the NRC, spoke during a plenary at the 21st International Symposium on the Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Materials (PATRAM 2025), in San Antonio, Texas last July. He cautioned us all not to repeat past mistakes, to consider the role of an independent regulator "sacrosanct," and develop an integrated, "long-term approach between industry and government, both here and internationally, if we want nuclear to scale to what the global economy now demands." Read more of his speech in this issue of Nuclear Newswire.
This Nuclear Niche event will be co-sponsored with the KBH Center and our UT American Nuclear Society Student Chapter. We will be welcoming Dr. Jon McWhirter, Chief Engineer at TerraPower to speak on the intersection of nuclear power and healthcare.
š When: Thursday, November 6th, 5:00 PM
š Where: ETC 3.112
š¤ Speaker: Dr. Jon McWhirter, Chief Engineer at TerraPower
Come see Dr. Derek Haas speak on nuclear power in Texas at the 2025 Texas Energy Summit in downtown Austin at the Capitol. Student registration is free.
š When: Thursday, November 6th, 1:30 PM
š Where: Texas State Capitol
š Registration Link: Here
Dr. Sheldon Landsberger gave a presentation at the NuFor 2025 (Nuclear Forensics) conference in London, England at the Institute of Physics on October 8. More than 100 people attended mainly undergoing nuclear forensics research. Presentation co-authored by Derek Haas gave an overview of their nuclear forensics research conducted at the Nuclear Engineering Teaching Lab over the last 23 years.
Texas has a 3ā5 year window to staff more than 10,000 advanced nuclear jobs tied to announced power projects in the state. This demand for talentāconcentrated in construction trades, nuclear technicians, operational staff, and four-year technical graduatesāfar exceeds the capacity of current in-state education and training pipelines and requires years to develop. Without targeted interventions, workforce constraints will become a bottleneck for deployment timelines and economic opportunity. To meet the speed and scale of the near-term demand for talent for these projects:
- Employers will have to move beyond advisory roles and directly invest in nuclear talent development.
- State agencies will need to send clear policy signals regarding nuclear workforce priorities, and
- Labor and Education will need to expand their pipelines, capacity, and programs.
The Nuclear and Radiation Engineering Program at UT Austin held the Texas Nuclear Workforce Development Workshop to align these stakeholders on actionable recommendations designed to complement recent state nuclear workforce development legislation.
This Nuclear Niche event will be co-sponsored with the KBH Center and our UT American Nuclear Society Student Chapter. We will be welcoming Evan Cummings,Senior Director of Business Development at Kairos Power to speak on the commercialization challenges for advanced nuclear reactors and how to bring them to market.
š When: Thursday, October 16, 6:00 PM
š Where: ETC 3.112
š¤ Speaker: Evan Cummings, Senior Director, Business Development at Kairos Power
The Nuclear and Radiation Engineering Program at The University of Texas at Austin proudly congratulates Clayton Hudson on the successful defense of his PhD dissertation,āÆāDevelopment of a Radioisotope Production Facility Using a Cryogenic Cooling System.ā
The Nuclear and Radiation Engineering Program at The University of Texas at Austin proudly congratulates Khiloni Shah on the successful defense of her PhD dissertation, āMeasurement of the ā“ā°Ca(n,Ī±)Ā³ā·Ar Thermal Neutron Cross Section.ā
This past May, NETL staff members, Rodrigo Viveros Duran and Tristan Brannon, successfully passed the US Nuclear Regulatory Commissionās Senior Reactor Operator exam.
No registration necessary. All are invited to attend this co-sponsored event on nuclear power in Texas between the KBH Energy Center, OLLI, and UT's Nuclear and Radiation Engineering Program on September 15, 2025 from 1:00-3:30PM in the LBJ Auditorium in Sid Richardson Hall on campus.
