Nuclear Energy’s Next Act: Innovation, Federal Support and the Role of Modeling and Simulation

Abstract:
The U.S. nuclear industry is entering a new chapter, driven by rising energy demand, renewed public interest, and unprecedented federal support. This talk will explore the forces behind today’s nuclear momentum, including efforts to deploy advanced reactors, strengthen domestic nuclear capabilities, and sustain the performance of the existing reactor fleet. It will also highlight the growing role of modeling and simulation in this evolving landscape. As innovative reactor concepts move from idea to deployment, predictive tools are increasingly essential for understanding system behavior, guiding design and licensing, and evaluating technologies for which experimental data remain limited. Together, public investment, industry innovation, and advanced computational tools are helping shape nuclear energy’s next act.

Biography:
Dr. Emily Shemon is a nuclear engineer at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory. She serves on the extended leadership team of the DOE’s Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) Program where she manages development, validation, and deployment of multiphysics tools for nuclear reactor analysis. She currently leads technical teams that develop high fidelity meshing software as well as fast reactor technology modeling capabilities. She co-leads the National Reactor Innovation Center’s Virtual Test Bed efforts, which supports industry adoption of advanced modeling and simulation through the open sharing of models. Dr. Shemon also has a background in high-performance computing and is on staff at Argonne’s Leadership Computing Facility. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan’s Department of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences where she received a Ph.D. in 2011.