Nuclear Fuels Technical Leader III

Position Title: Nuclear Fuels Performance Technical Leader III

Requisition : REQ-3870

Position Type: Full time

EPRI provides thought leadership, industry expertise, and collaborative value to help the electricity sector identify issues, technology gaps, and broader needs that can be addressed through effective research and development programs for the benefit of society.

Nuclear Fuels Performance Technical Leader III

Remote/Home Based

We are seeking a highly skilled technical expert in fuel reliability and performance, with a particular focus on cladding corrosion and water chemistry interactions in LWR fuel. The ideal candidate will bring broad understanding of commercial light water reactor (LWR) fuel design, core design, thermal hydraulics, high temperature water chemistry, stainless steel and Inconel corrosion, and crud-induced fuel performance phenomena, as well as strong familiarity with the nuclear industry and its key stakeholders.

This role requires deep technical expertise in the behavior of nuclear fuel under LWR operating conditions, including crud and crud-induced corrosion mechanisms and modeling, fuel/chemistry interaction phenomena, fuel reliability and performance drivers, and mitigation approaches to fuel reliability/performance issues. A successful candidate will develop R&D programs to solve technical challenges related to fuel reliability and performance issues in commercial LWRs, including identification and evaluation of issues related to the industry's near-term transition to fuel with higher burnup and enrichment limits and longer operating cycles.

Key roles and responsibilities for this position include:

• Lead and support technical projects aimed at solving complex fuel reliability and performance challenges in commercial LWRs.
• Develop and execute R&D strategies, including project concepts, scopes of work, laboratory task oversight, and review technical deliverables in collaboration with industry experts and stakeholders.
• Present project status and results to utility members, leadership teams, and other industry stakeholder groups. This requires strong communication, presentation, and consensus-building skills.
• Facilitate and lead industry meetings, including large workshops, trainings, technical webcasts, and collaborative forums.
• Conduct domestic and international travel to support project execution, utility engagement, and technology transfer activities.

Additional attributes that would be beneficial include:

• Knowledge of and experience with destructive and nondestructive evaluation techniques for nuclear reactor fuel and fuel assembly components
• Experience with laboratory testing and hot cell examinations
• Direct experience collaborating within multi-organization R&D environments (e.g., fuel vendors, national laboratories, research institutes, utilities, etc.)
• Fuel assembly design and manufacturing
• Core design and operation
• Non-destructive fuel examination techniques

Key Responsibilities and Requirements:

• Works independently on technical activities without direct supervision.
• Demonstrates responsibility for highly specialized technical objectives or problems where the relationships between cause and effect are difficult to establish and little or no precedence exists, and the use of creative and imaginative thinking is required.
• Assumes responsibility for highly specialized technical objectives or problems where the relationships between cause and effect are difficult to establish and little or no precedence exists, and the use of creative and imaginative thinking is required.
• Maintains familiarity with the progress and problems in assigned technical areas and support identification of gaps.
• Provides high-level engineering efforts to support requirements in development and design and provides guidance to junior staff.
• Provides input into configuration management and documentation for engineer related projects.
• Acts as technical specialist for projects or project tasks.

Additional Requirements:

• Has established relationships with primary advisors to a research area.
• Works alongside EPRI sales staff in Member Services and EPRI International to support member/client needs.
• Effectively communicates complex strategies and results, expressing thoughts clearly and concisely both verbally and in writing, to subject matter experts, program members and advisors.
• Adjusts communication content and format to capture attention and meet the needs of the intended audience through guidelines, reports, meetings, webcasts, workshops and conferences.
• Regularly communicates and coordinates work activities across programs and sectors.
• May provide oversight of a project team to assure technical and financial milestones are met.
• Organizes the external and interdepartmental activities ensuring completion of the project/product on schedule and within budget.
• Leads the planning and execution of complex project work within the technical department to meet member/client objectives; prepares…