U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm issued the following statement today after the U.S. Senate confirmed Dr. Kathryn Huff with a bipartisan vote of 80-11 to serve as Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
May 5, 2022
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm issued the following statement today after the U.S. Senate confirmed Dr. Kathryn Huff with a bipartisan vote of 80-11 to serve as Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE):
“I am so grateful to the Senate for confirming Dr. Kathryn Huff to serve as DOE’s Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy. Dr. Huff has been a trailblazer for her entire career in nuclear engineering, and she brings endless enthusiasm and curiosity to her work. In her role, she leads DOE’s efforts to maintain existing, zero-carbon nuclear power facilities and advance next-generation nuclear energy technologies. Dr. Huff is an invaluable leader in our work to tackle the climate crisis, increase our energy security and independence, and provide affordable, reliable energy for all Americans. I am very grateful for Dr. Huff’s willingness to serve the American people and I’m so glad that she is part of the DOE family.”
About Dr. Kathryn Huff
Dr. Kathryn Huff has served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy since May 2021. Prior to that role, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she led the Advanced Reactors and Fuel Cycles Research Group. Huff was also a Blue Waters Assistant Professor with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
Previously, Huff was a Postdoctoral Fellow in both the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium and the Berkeley Institute for Data Science at the University of California-Berkeley. She received her PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013, and her undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Chicago. Huff is an active member of the American Nuclear Society and is a Past Chair of the Nuclear Nonproliferation and Policy Division, Past Chair of the Fuel Cycle and Waste Management Division, and a recipient of both the Young Member Excellence and Mary Jane Oestmann Professional Women's Achievement awards. Through leadership within Software Carpentry, SciPy, the Hacker Within, and the Journal of Open-Source Software, she has also advocated for best practices in open, reproducible scientific computing.
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