Delegation presents flash talks and panel contributions at the IAEA’s first International Conference on Stakeholder Engagement for Nuclear Power Programmes.
Members of the Fastest Path to Zero Initiative joined experts from around the world at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) first International Conference on Stakeholder Engagement for Nuclear Power Programmes, held May 26–30 in Vienna, Austria. The event brought together decision-makers, researchers, and practitioners to share strategies for building public trust, integrating community perspectives, and strengthening stakeholder relationships throughout the nuclear energy lifecycle.
The conference was organized in response to growing global interest in clean energy deployment and the increasing recognition that meaningful engagement with stakeholders is essential to the success of any nuclear power program.
Six representatives from the University of Michigan’s Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS) and the Fastest Path to Zero Initiative delivered presentations across a range of research areas at the intersection of nuclear technology, public trust, and community collaboration.
NERS PhD candidate Sebastian Lecha, gave a talk titled Ideal Community Engagement Strategies: Qualitative Interviews with Clean Energy Experts, highlighting emerging themes from interviews with practitioners who design technologies or facilitate stakeholder engagement in the energy sector. His talk emphasized the need for early, ongoing, and personalized approaches when siting advanced reactors or other clean energy infrastructure. Lecha, who is advised by NERS Assistant Professor Aditi Verma, is conducting his dissertation research on community engagement in the early stages of the reactor design process.
Barbara Peitsch, Business Manager for Fastest Path, presented on Best Practices and Building the Business Case for Stakeholder Engagement, outlining the costs, benefits, and risks associated with engagement efforts and making the case for integrating community-informed approaches into the core of project planning. Her presentation was based on practitioner-focused workshops organized by River Bennett, a graduate student in the 2021-22 academic year.
Denia Djokić, Assistant Research Scientist, shared insights on how culturally informed understandings of local energy and nuclear histories can support meaningful community engagement in advanced reactor siting. Her talk drew on qualitative research from the NEUP-funded project Engaging Wyoming Communities in an Environmental Justice Approach for Advanced Nuclear Energy Facility Siting, led by Dr. Rachael Budowle at Virginia Tech and the University of Wyoming, with a focus on Kemmerer, Wyoming—the planned site of the Natrium demonstration-scale advanced reactor.
Katie Snyder, NERS Adjunct Assistant Research Scientist and Lecturer in the Program in Technical Communication, discussed coursework from Community-Engaged Design of Nuclear Energy Technologies (ENGR100.910, which she and Verma teach together). The talk was titled “Collaborating with students on nuclear waste siting: an interdisciplinary approach to technology stewardship and deep-time innovation.” This first-year, design-build-test course at Michigan Engineering introduces students to the social and technical dimensions of reactor design. Snyder described how asking students to consider the long-term implications of their engineering work fosters a more holistic engineering mindset.
Ann Verhey-Henke, Fastest Path Lead Project Manager, participated in a multi-stakeholder panel focused Closing the Circle: Stakeholder Synergy in Nuclear Waste Solutions. The panel was composed of local government representatives, country level nuclear agency officials, and researchers. Verhey-Henke shared lessons learned from current research focused on understanding whether co-design could be an effective approach to conversations focused on waste management projects where she underscored the importance of building respect across all rightsholders, taking time to first build trust.
Aditi Verma, Assistant Professor and core Fastest Path faculty member, participated in a high-level panel discussion titled Transition to a Sustainable Future with Nuclear. The panel featured a mix of researchers and senior policymakers from Ghana, Malaysia, Slovenia, Poland, and the US. Verma’s remarks focused on findings from participatory design workshops held with students (from her and Snyder’s Community Engaged Design of Nuclear Energy Technologies course) held last Fall. Students and community members worked together in these workshops to imagine hypothetical microreactor facilities for Southeast Michigan. The findings highlight how community members strive to connect the history and identity of their region in the design of new energy infrastructure. The collaborative designs also emphasize a respect for nature, care for workers, and the importance of transparency and access to the energy facility by the host community. This approach to design, which Verma and Snyder call “sociotechnical engineering,” is meant to prepare future generations of nuclear engineers to design smaller and more distributed energy infrastructure, likely to be sited in proximity to people and communities.
Verma also gave a talk titled Virtual Reality as a Medium for Education and Public Engagement, in which she showcased the collaboration between NERS, the Visualisation Studio at the Duderstadt Center, and the Program in Technical Communication to develop immersive VR models of fusion and fusion systems. These models have been used in Verma and Snyder’s ENGR100.910 course, as part of Harper Academy (the NERS nuclear engineering summer school), as well as at a microreactor workshop for high-level policymakers in Alaska held in September 2024. The development of these VR models has been supported by an Enhancing Engineering Education grant from the College of Engineering, support from the Idaho National Laboratory’s Emerging Market Analysis initiative, and input from Oklo and BWXT.
Fastest Path’s presence at the IAEA conference reflects its ongoing commitment to connecting science, policy, and public engagement to accelerate the deployment of clean energy systems. Through its multidisciplinary research and global collaborations, the initiative continues to elevate the importance of community-informed energy transitions.
