Nuclear Engineering Professor Ivan Maldonado served as the general chair for the 2025 Advances in Nuclear Fuel Management (ANFM) Conference, which was held last July in Clearwater Beach, Florida.
Sponsored by the Reactor Physics and the Fuel Cycle & Waste Management Divisions of the American Nuclear Society (ANS), the event was the first ANFM Conference in 10 years. The theme was “Evolving Paradigms in Nuclear Fuel Management: Powering Future Generations,” and representatives from academia, industry, utilities, fuel vendors, and national laboratories shared and discussed the latest developments and future of the field.
“I believe this conference was a great success,” said Maldonado, who was recently named an ANS Fellow. “Many thought that with the irregular frequency, it would not be on the radar for folks that attend conferences and attendance would suffer. However, we had targeted 200 attendees and 120 papers and secured 205 registrants and over 100 papers while meeting every financial milestone.”
Maldonado, who joined the Tickle College of Engineering faculty in 2007, has been affiliated with the US nuclear industry for more than 30 years, with expertise in computational modeling and simulation of current and next-generation nuclear reactors and specialization in nuclear fuel management optimization.
Maldonado’s former PhD advisor, Paul Turnisky, from North Carolina State University was a pioneer in the area of nuclear fuel management optimization and organized the first series of ANFM meetings in the late 1980s. Turinsky relied on former students like Maldonado to assist in various roles throughout the events. Last year’s conference was the sixth overall since the inaugural event in 1987.
“My former advisor has been retired, and he had asked me to try to launch this meeting again, so I agreed,” Maldonado said. “I also included a panel at the meeting named ‘The legacy of Paul Turinsky,’ which included several of his former students giving presentations on the impact he has had on our lives, professionally and personally.”
Maldonado and the other members of the ANFM organizing committee spent nearly three years planning for the return of the event. They were able to host six workshops, six panel discussions, two plenary sessions, and 25 technical sessions over three days.
“To successfully organize a meeting like this, you need to enroll a strong organizing team that includes members of industry, specifically of companies committed to sponsoring the meeting financially,” Maldonado said. “We had a strong support from Westinghouse and Studsvik, which led to us being able to put on a great meeting that benefitted everyone in attendance.”
Contact
Rhiannon Potkey (rpotkey@utk.edu)