President Announces Two NRC Commissioner Nominees

Printer-friendly version

On October 9, 2009, President Obama announced his intent to nominate George Apostolakis, PhD and William Magwood, IV for the two open Commissioner positions in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). If both are confirmed by the Senate, this would mark the first occasion the Commission has been whole (all five seats filled) in over three years.[ACR]

George Apostolakis, Nominee for Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Dr. George Apostolakis is the Korea Electric Power Company professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering and a professor of Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in engineering science and applied mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in 1973. He is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society and of the Society for Risk Analysis. He received the Tommy Thompson Award for his contributions to improvement of reactor safety in 1999 and the Arthur Holly Compton Award in Education in 2005 from the American Nuclear Society. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2007. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal Reliability Engineering and System Safety and the founder of the International Conferences on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management (PSAM). Dr. Apostolakis is a member and former chairman of the statutory Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. His current research interests include methods for risk and reliability assessment of complex technological systems; nuclear reactor safety; uncertainty analysis; the use of Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) in design; infrastructure security; risk-informed and performance-based regulation; and risk management involving multiple stakeholders. He has published numerous papers and has participated in many PRA courses and PRA reviews.

William D. Magwood, IV, Nominee for Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission
William D. Magwood, IV was the longest-serving head of the United States’ civilian nuclear technology program, serving two Presidents and five Secretaries of Energy from May 1998 until he stepped down on May 24, 2005. He then founded the firm Advanced Energy Strategies to provide strategic advice to domestic and international clients. As the Director of Nuclear Energy with the U.S. Department of Energy, Mr. Magwood was the senior nuclear technology official in the United States Government and the senior nuclear technology policy advisor to the Secretary of Energy. Under Mr. Magwood’s leadership, the Office of Nuclear Energy encouraged a new consideration of nuclear power technology in the United States. Among other efforts, he led the creation of the "Nuclear Power 2010" initiative, which remains the cornerstone of U.S. industry’s exploration of building new nuclear power plants to provide for the Nation’s future energy needs, and led efforts that reversed the decline in American nuclear technology education. Mr. Magwood was also a strong advocate of international technology cooperation and was elected Chairman of both the Generation IV International Forum and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Steering Committee on Nuclear Energy. Prior to his appointment as Director of Nuclear Energy, Mr. Magwood served as the Associate Director for Technology and Program Planning in the Office of Nuclear Energy for four years. From 1984-1994, he managed electric utility research and nuclear policy programs at the Edison Electric Institute in Washington, DC; and he was a scientist at Westinghouse Electric Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he analyzed radiological and hazardous waste disposal, treatment, and handling systems. Mr. Magwood holds a B.S. degree in Physics and a B.A. degree in English from Carnegie-Mellon University. He also holds an M.F.A. degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

Reference:
[ACR] Quoted from American College of Radiology Website
http://www.acr.org/SecondaryMainMenuCategories/GR_Econ/FeaturedCategorie...