Dani Zigon, Director of Strategic Initiatives for UT Austin's Nuclear and Radiation Engineering Program, delivered the opening keynote at Texas A&M's 2026 ReCENT Summit on April 28–29. The PowerUp program event brought approximately 500 middle and high school students to campus over two days for hands-on exposure to careers in clean energy and nuclear technology.
Zigon's keynote traced her path from Purdue nuclear engineering through a decade in oil and gas to her current role building Texas's nuclear workforce pipeline. During her session, students completed "Power Your World" activity sheets — drawings of their future goals and the energy systems that would power them. Approximately 300 student drawings were collected and assembled into the collaborative mural below connecting student aspirations to clean energy and nuclear technology.
The ReCENT (Renewable Clean Energy Technologies) Workforce Development program, housed at Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), partners with Texas school districts to build awareness of career pathways in the nuclear and clean energy sectors, a mission that aligns directly with UT Austin NRE's statewide workforce development initiatives through SB1535 and ongoing legislative engagement under HB14.
