ML24326A070
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| Issue date: | 10/31/2024 |
| From: | Chan A NRC/RES/PMDA |
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TEAMS TRANSCRIPT NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION TITLE: STAKEHOLDER FEEDBACK AND LISTENING SESSION FOR THE NRCS UNIVERSITY NUCLEAR LEADERSHIP PROGRAM LOCATION: WEBINAR MEETING ID: 265 660 331 353 PASSCODE: 3aRFHB DATE: OCTOBER 31, 2024, 10:00am
- The contents of this transcript have been autogenerated from TEAMS. This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected, and edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
Patricia Glenn 0:03 That's where we'll come together to hear thoughts and feedback from the public for our logistics, all of our virtual participants and really, we're all virtual.
Today we'll be in listen only mode until the designated comment periods. Also, please be aware that there will be no regulatory decisions that are being made and this meeting will be recorded.
The recording will be available post the meeting through our public website.
Also, during our information notice for this public meeting it was mentioned that if you needed reasonable accommodations or anything of the sort, there was specific information in regards to that.
So if you need to reference that during the meeting, please do so.
Also, as you can see on your screen there is a QR code if you haven't had a chance, please go ahead and pull out your phones. We would appreciate you signing into the public meeting. We are hoping to get some information about who's joining us and also where you.
Are joining us from, meaning your organization or affiliation?
Thank you.
It helps us in our areas of stakeholder engagement. Next slide please.
For our agenda today, we are going to begin with some introductions.
After that, we'll have opening remarks from leadership from our Office of Research, then will be followed by a presentation from the NRC that will focus on the UN LP program itself will have an opportunity for public comment followed by that will have another NRC presentation that focuses on The ADVANCE Act Traineeship sub program again that will be followed by public comments and then we will close with remarks from leadership from the Office of Research.
If we could, I'll go ahead and have portions of the UNLP team to introduce themselves and we will start with Anita. Anita.
Anita Chan (She/Her) 2:05 Hi, welcome everybody.
My name is Anita Chan.
I'm a senior management and program analyst with the UNLP program at NRC.
Patricia Glenn 2:14 Next, we'll have Marissa.
Marissa Bailey (She/Her) 2:19 Good morning.
I'm Marissa Bailey.
I am the acting deputy director for the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research here at the NRC, which leads the implementation of the UN LP.
Patricia Glenn 2:33 We'll have next, Sarah.
Excuse me, Michael. Followed by Sarah.
Mike King 2:39 I. Oh, hi, everybody. Good morning.
I'm Mike king.
I'm a special assistant to the executive director for operations for its ADVANCE Act implementation. Welcome.
Patricia Glenn 2:53 Thanks Mike king.
We'll have Michael from the UNLP team.
Michael Brezovec 2:57 Good morning, everybody.
My name is Michael Brezovec.
I'm a division director in the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
I oversee the university Nuclear Leadership Program, which is the UN LP program.
Patricia Glenn 3:11 And then well have Sarah.
Sarah Shaffer 3:13 Good morning, everyone.
My name is Sarah Shaffer.
I'm one of the senior grant specialist that works under the University Nuclear Leadership Program. Welcome.
Patricia Glenn 3:25 Awesome and thank you for those introductions again at the top of the meeting I introduced myself.
My name is Patricia Glenn.
I am a member of the strategies and Solutions team that works in the Office of the Executive Director. However, for today I have the distinct pleasure.
Of serving as your facilitator. With that I am going to pass the baton over to Marissa for our opening remarks. Next slide please.
Marissa Bailey (She/Her) 3:55 Thanks, Patricia. Again, good morning and again, I'm Marissa Bailey, the acting deputy director for the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
I'd also like to welcome you to this meeting and thank you for being here and also for your interest in NR, Cs University Nuclear Leadership program or as we like to call it, the UNLP.
Today's meeting will be in two parts as this slide indicates, the first part is collecting feedback and experiences.
On the UNLP overall and 2nd part is to gather experiences and perspectives. For Section 402 of the ADVANCE Act, which mandates NRC to develop a new traineeship sub program under the UNLP.
A few things I'd like to note on the agenda that was shared with you earlier.
First, we will share an overview of the UN LP, which has been at the NRC since 2009.
And has supported thousands of students as part of that program.
The comment gathering session on the advanced deck will solely be focused on section 402 again, which is on the traineeship program.
We greatly value your comments.
They will help us enhance the UNLP program and also help us begin to assess the needs of the nuclear industry as well as the NRC and further develop the nuclear workforce.
For the ADVANCE Act itself, there will be opportunities to provide feedback and input on other sections of the ADVANCE Act, either through the feedback form which will provide later in the presentation or through future public meetings.
And so again I want to emphasize that your feedback is important to us and we are looking forward to hearing from you. And so before we proceed, I'd like to turn over to Mike King, who as noted earlier is leading NRCs overall.
It's for implementing the Advance Act.
Mike.
Mike King 5:58 Thanks, Marissa, and welcome everybody.
I just wanted to, you know, make sure everybody is aware there is an overarching agency wide effort in to respond to the Advance Act, which includes over 20 different project teams.
So this is just one of the many teams that are underway and based on early feedback from some of the public meetings that have occurred, I just wanted to clarify.
In case there's any confusion.
This each of those twenty teams will be having their own meetings at their own pace.
And they'll all be noticed with the hashtag advance NRC so that they can all be visible to anybody who goes to the advance Act public website to see all the upcoming public meetings. And so, depending on your area of interest, each of these meetings may or may
not.
Be something you may be interested in so, but for the purposes of this particular meeting, it is focused on section 402, the nuclear energy traineeship sub program.
And so if you are interested in that, then you're in the right meeting. If you're interested in some other aspect of the Advance Act you, I'd encourage you to check out the NRCS public website to figure out when there might be an opportunity to have those meetings. So.
Again, welcome.
And we were very excited to hear any thoughts you have on our implementation of this section of the ADVANCE Act.
Thanks so much.
Back to you, Patricia.
Patricia Glenn 7:31 Awesome and thank you both to Mike and Marissa and shout out to the Advance Act team for being present today along with the UNLP team. With that, we are going to hand it over to Anita to get started with the first portion of our NRC presentations today an.
I'll turn it over to you.
Anita Chan (She/Her) 7:51 Great. Thank you and welcome again.
I'm excited to see some diverse input into our UNLP program, so I'll be providing a brief overview.
So before we seek feedback, so like Marissa shared, the university Nuclear Leadership program was first established at NRC in 2009.
It was known as the Integrated University program at that time and has since changed its name to what we refer to as UNLP.
Our program provides grants to academic institutions to develop the nuclear workforce through various competitively awarded programs and the UNLP is a joint collaboration with the DOE.
And each of our programs are funded at $16,000,000 annually and they are awarded a little bit differently based on, you know the federal agencies. But they all award grants to institutions of higher education.
So the UNLP program within NRC has multiple award types.
We award them under two notifications of funding opportunities, so we generally group them as education and research and development. So under our education program, we award grants to institutions of higher education to support students in degree or certification programs.
So that may be at trade schools, community colleges, universities and colleges for their undergraduate and graduate students.
As well as faculty who are early in their career, who are developing workforce needs and supporting students.
Through their research and teaching efforts, students receiving the scholarships and fellowships, including at trade schools and community colleges, received the funding through these grants for things like tuition stipends. And while the students work under the faculty
development and reach, search and development grants.
They directly support the faculty or research projects that are being awarded for those.
So on the screen you can see I'm not going to read through the exact breakdown, but you can see there are some slight differences in the time and awarding amounts for each of our different grant types.
Again, the first four are what we call our educational grants and then we have our research and development grant.
Just a little bit of history of our program.
So since 2009, we have awarded over $237 million worth of grants, so 709 grants.
Each of our award breakdowns are given there.
We have a good number of active grants that are currently open and being actively awarded.
Just as a baseline for FY23 we had about 8 million awarded in educational grants and 10 million awarded in the research and development grants.
The R&D program is new since 2022, so you can see there's a lot of active participation in those grants and we are constantly seeking areas that are mission related research toward those R&D grants.
Under the NRC UNLP program, students receiving scholarships and fellowships, including students at trade schools and community colleges, must sign a service agreement as part of receiving funding support through the education grants. So, as part of those service agreements, students must maintain satisfactory academic progress. So in the case.
Of undergraduates and graduate students.
This would include maintaining a minimum grade point average and sustaining their coursework That nuclear related field after graduation, students must serve six months in a nuclear related field of employment.
NRC staff follows up with the students on their employment status and also the universities that are awarded the grants also report on student employment and graduation status.
So one of the benefits of the service agreement is that students may also be considered for non competitive employment for select job opportunities at NRC.
And as part of the Student service agreement, students who do not meet the requirements do either repay the funds or apply for a waiver as part of the program as well.
So today we have had over 4200 students that have been supported through our grant program with signed service agreements with the NRC. They've received over 115 million.
With the large majority of that going to our fellowship students.
For FY23, our R&D and education grants were all awarded this year by April 2024.
So currently we have our FY24 education grants that are in the process of being reviewed.
All of our proposals are reviewed by NRC and external reviewers so that we can ensure that we have the perspectives of both internal and external stakeholders.
Currently the R&D awards are anticipated to be awarded by the end of November 2024.
And we are always seeking additional perspectives for proposal reviewers for both our education and R&D.
We look to make sure that we have a balance of academic areas and so we are always seeking if even if you have never applied for a NNRCUNLP grant that you know if you have
interest in becoming involved and becoming a reviewer that we do have multiple opportunities for those as well.
Right. So I'm gonna turn it over back to Patricia.
Patricia Glenn 14:29 Thank you, Anita.
So with that, we've actually just wrapped up our first NRC presentation. Again, as you noted, it was focused on the UNLP program in itself.
So we're about to transition to our open comment period.
We asked that your comments be focused on the UN.
He program we have some specific questions that we are going to share with you.
So for the meeting guidelines, just so we're all on the same page, we do want to hear from as many people as possible.
So that means that we'll kind of go in a round Robin respect to where folks will be able to raise their hand, we'll go through those quick through those participants and then if we have time, we can circle through additional participants.
Additionally, as you all can already tell, our participants are in listen only mode.
Unless you are speaking, we do ask that everyone would please help us out in this meeting to maintain a cordial and professional environment and again as a reminder, no regulatory decisions are being made today. Next slide please.
So how do you participate for those that are actually joining us within the teams program today, the way that you'll participate is to actually raise your hand so that when I'm say that, I mean, you're sitting at your computer, you're on your mobile device.
What you do is you will use the raised hand.
You raise your hand function within the teams window.
You should see there at the top is a literal hand.
Will you'll raise your hand. And then if you're on the phone, will we ask you to do is to press?
Five that will raise your hand through the phone. At that point, you'll wait for a facilitator.
That'll be me to acknowledge you for your turn to speak once it is your turn to speak. We do ask that you would go ahead and unmute yourself.
You should see a microphone at the top or the bottom of your screen where you can unmute and then for those that are on the phone, you will need to press *6 to unmute yourself.
And then we are asking everyone to keep your comments to.
A 3 minute time frame.
And that will help us to hear as many voices as possible, which is our hope today.
Next slide please.
Oh, we the UNLP team is kind of put together a set of questions that we want you all to take a look at and to focus on to hear your specific feedback.
Today I'm going to read them into your hearing, but please do go ahead and read them for yourselves as well.
Those areas include for current or previous grantees, how has the UN LP?
And the funding receive contributed to your work.
The program.
Your school or your local community, we would also like to learn more about how has the
UNLP contributed to the nuclear industry and workforce more broadly.
And lastly, we would like to hear your thoughts on what additional support or resources could be beneficial for applicants.
And grantees. And with that, I would invite you to raise your hand if you have comments around these areas.
And we will begin to acknowledge those that are interested in sharing with us today. And I do see that we have.
Lori B that it has their hand raised, so I'm going to unmute you.
Or promote you and you should be able to unmute your mic at this time.
Please share your name and your affiliation. Good morning.
BRADY, Lori 18:15 I'm Lori Brady.
I'm with the Nuclear Energy Institute, and thank you for inviting this conversation today.
We do believe that UNLP can does deliver value to the to the nuclear sector, but we do believe that there's some areas for continued improvement which include making sure that the various components of the UNLP program are more visible to the industry as a whole, I think at times not everybody is aware of all the various program facets and what's available.
And so I think there's a way that we can amplify.
This program and make sure more people are aware of its existence and its capabilities and its abilities.
That's it.
Was the end of my comment.
Marissa Bailey (She/Her) 19:15 Patricia, you're muted.
Patricia Glenn 19:19 Thank you, Marissa. I appreciate that teamwork.
Thank you, Lori.
I appreciate you sharing.
Our next person is Russell G.
Russell, you should be able to go ahead and.
Unmute yourself and share your comment for today.
Russell Goff 19:37 Yeah. Hi, this is Russell Goff with the nuclear talent scout.
And yeah, I was just a quick question in terms of was it the intention for 100% of Section 402 nuclear energy traineeship to be running through the UNLP?
Patricia Glenn 19:56 Russell, we do have as Marissa mentioned earlier, the meeting is segmented in two parts.
So for the purposes of this first part, we are trying to focus mainly on the UNLP program itself.
However, we are going to transition to specifically talk about the traineeship program. It'll provide some introductory thoughts, and then there'll be a time for questions and comments.
So if you could just hold on to that one, I would appreciate it.
Russell Goff 20:22 Great. Sounds good.
Patricia Glenn 20:24 Awesome. Thank you so much.
OK.
I see a couple of other hands.
I see 1021 development.
Your mic is being enabled.
You should be able to unmute and share.
1021 Development, LLC 20:41 Yes, good morning. Thank you, miss Patricia.
Hi, my name is Joe Ford.
I'm the owner of 10/21 Development LLC and it's a two-part question. As an SDVOSB owned business, pursuing the opportunities for applying for, for grant for research.
How would a teaming agreement with an 8A affect the ability. I guess the opportunity to reach out and two.
I'm imagining you will probably be the best point of contact for pursuing those. If there's somebody else who would you recommend?
Those are my questions and that's it.
Patricia Glenn 21:22 Thank you from the UNLP team. Thoughts.
Sarah Shaffer 21:32 Good morning, Joe.
Are you talking about like partnering with a university?
I just wanna make sure I understand your question.
1021 Development, LLC 21:42 Well, yes, in part, we actually have a tentative relationship with the with the university in our state as far as pursuing the funding as far as applying for grant funding, working with the university, whether it's an educational partnership grant or establishing a teaming agreement with a that.
Already in place.
Sarah Shaffer 22:06 OK so.
Our partnerships are actually.
So we award the universities directly and there are opportunities for partnerships within those proposals and usually that collaboration is at the university level.
So I would maybe suggest reaching out to that university in your state to talk more to them about it, to see how you could interact in a in a partnership with them.
With regards to the grant program.
1021 Development, LLC 22:38 Perfect. And Miss Shaffer what? I forwarded them to your e-mail or contact info. Or should I go somewhere else?
Thank you so much.
Sarah Shaffer 22:45 Oh, sure you can.
You can send it to me or Anita Chan is the other senior grant specialist under the program.
So either Anita or myself would be able to assist.
1021 Development, LLC 22:57 Thank you so much for your time.
Sarah Shaffer 22:59 You're welcome.
Patricia Glenn 23:01 Thank you for those questions.
I do want to remind everyone, if you would please to as youre thinking and sharing today, to remember the questions that we have on the screen. We really want to hear your thoughts in regards to those as it helps us to learn more about your experience and the.
UNLP program, which is part of our intention and our scope for today.
So with that I do see.
Amir S am going to go ahead and enable your microphone.
You should be able to speak.
Have to at the top or bottom of your team screen. You'll have to also hit the microphone in.
We sure can.
Shahirinia, Amir 23:47 Hey, sounds good.
So on the mirror show, you're gonna associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UDC. My question is regarding your research and development proposals that you have a specific category for program for the minority or you're gonna have, you know, minority and regular, you know kind of programs in the same channel.
If you explain that I have the second question related to this.
Patricia Glenn 24:27
Mirror it looks like we lost you for the maybe the 2nd portion.
Did you have something go ahead?
Shahirinia, Amir 24:33 OK.
So yeah, I was asking if you have any specific program to submit the grants for the MSI you know minority universities.
Or it's gonna be the regular programs. However, you know they're gonna, you know, kind of separate them or they're gonna be because I, I saw you explained that you have.
No minority on the 4th slide, something like that.
On the, on the, on the 5th slide, actually including minority services institution MSIs.
So I wanna see that if that is a separate program or.
Same join program.
Anita Chan (She/Her) 25:22 So I can jump in.
I didn't quite hear the second part of the question, but in terms of the minority serving institutions, we do look at that especially at the R&D level for universities that there are some points awarded for partnerships with minority serving institutions. If you look on our grants website for NRC you will see that there is also.
A minority serving institution grant that is not a program under UNLP, but that is also a grant program at NRC.
Shahirinia, Amir 25:59 OK.
Thank you.
Anita Chan (She/Her) 26:03 I don't know if I answered both parts of your question.
Patricia Glenn 26:12 Amir, if you have something additional, please, you know, feel free to jump back in line, Anita.
Thank you for answering that question.
And Amir, thank you for sharing and speaking our next person that we have in the queue is Adam S.
Adam, we will go ahead and enable your microphone as I'm doing that, I do want to ask our team if you would please to make sure to go back to our questions.
Slide I would appreciate that. And then I would ask everyone to please if you could.
Speak to these things. We want to make sure we hear. You know, how has your experience with the UNLP program or funding contributed to your work, your program, your school, your local community.
Where are also interested in learning.
You know how UNLP has contributed to the nuclear industry and the workforce more
broadly.
And then what support or resources could be beneficial for applicants and grantee recipients?
With that, I'm enabling your microphone Adam, and you should be able to unmute on your end and share today.
Adam Stein 27:17 Hello. Thank you for the opportunity to ask a question and engage. This is going to be in relation to the last question about additional resources that would be beneficial to also slightly be in context the Advance Act, but it will be about UNLP.
Does UNLP still require applications to come from approved institutions?
If so, my question is, what is the NRC doing to reach out to institutions that may not already be approved to encourage them or try to partner with them to expand the list of approved institutions to try to address some of the hiring needs of the industry and the NRC, as clearly outlined by the Advance Act, but also from NRC leadership. I was not able to get a UNLP grant when I was a graduate student years ago.
Because I was not in an approved institution, even though I was doing research on a very nuclear specific topic.
Thank you.
Anita Chan (She/Her) 28:23 Thank you.
So I believe what you are referring to is DOE also has a UNLP program as I shared earlier and they do have an approved list of universities that they partner with.
Our program is a little bit different that we fund the universities directly who apply to our notice of funding opportunity and then they award students if they are approved for their grant.
Adam Stein 28:59 Thank you for the response. I would say that a little bit of clarification in the materials on the website as an additional resource to clarify that difference would be useful to students that are trying to find funding on their own and then bring that to their advisor or institution.
Anita Chan (She/Her) 29:17 That's great feedback. Thank you.
Patricia Glenn 29:22 Thank you for sharing that question. Also, that feedback, the next person that we have in queue is Tori F Tori.
I am enabling your microphone.
You should be able to go ahead and unmute on your end and share today.
Forbes, Tori M 29:36 Thank you very much and I really appreciate the opportunity to comment today.
So I'm at the University of Iowa.
I'm a professor in the Department of Chemistry here and we have previously received funds from this program to support faculty development and I really want to acknowledge how much that has been an asset to us as we're growing our radio chemistry program here at the University of Iowa. It's helped us support junior faculty as they're moving forward towards tenure.
And that has also been really crucial in helping the university administration understand the importance of radio chemistry and nuclear energy related fields.
And so I just want him to specifically call out how important that has been and I wanna encourage.
The continuation of that program to help support the development of faculty, because it's one thing to be able to support students, but we need faculty who have that expertise, and we have to then convince the university that's an important area of study. And so having those funds has.
Really been important to us and I just wanted to thank the NRC for having that available.
Patricia Glenn 30:54 Thank you for sharing today.
Our next person in queue is Young Wai Young.
I'm going to go ahead and enable your microphone and you should be able to unmute on your end and share today.
You'll have to look at your screen either at the top or the bottom.
You should see the microphone icon and if you tap that, that should.
Unmute your microphone.
If you're speaking, we cannot hear you.
Give you just another moment or two to see if we can work that out and then if not, I'll ask you to maybe try to continue to troubleshoot on your end and definitely jump back in line if you're speaking. We cannot hear you.
Your microphone is enabled, so unfortunately, we can't hear you.
We're gonna go on to the next person, but we definitely wanna hear your comment young. If you can get back in line and maybe troubleshoot on your end, we would appreciate that and we will circle back to you.
With that, our next person in line is Jason H.
Jason, I'm going to enable your microphone.
You will have to unmute on your end and then share.
Your microphone is unmuted.
You will have to hit the microphone button on your end to enable as well.
If you are speaking, we cannot hear you.
One thing I'm gonna do just for awareness for everyone, young and Jason, I'm noting your names.
Just to make sure we can circle back to you everything on my end looks like it's enabled.
And you should be able to speak, but we will.
Go to the next person and circle back. Actually, go ahead.
Anita Chan (She/Her) 33:30 Patricia, I'm sorry. Can I just circle back for one second?
Because I don't know that we fully clarified something for one of the previous responses.
The question was about funding business, 8A businesses and I just wanna make sure that we're clear that the UN LP program funds universities and we don't fund individual businesses or partnerships with industry in that way.
Patricia Glenn 34:05 Thank you for offering that clarification, Anita. I appreciate it.
One quick thing too to anyone that's running into any technology issues. We have the Teams option where you're actually logged into your computer now, but if you look at our public meeting notices, well, you will see that there was a phone number where you can also try to.
Dial in by phone. So that's another option for audio as well. So, as we continue to.
Make sure that we can hear you 'cause we want do want to make sure that we hear your comments and feedback today.
With that, we're gonna go to Janelle West.
Janelle, I'm going to allow your microphone and then you should be able to unmute on your end.
Wharry, Janelle 34:48 Can you hear me?
Patricia Glenn 34:49 We sure can.
And thank you for testing the technology for us today. Thank you.
Wharry, Janelle 34:50 Great.
Awesome. Well, thank you.
Yeah. So my name is Janelle Werry.
I'm a professor at the University of Illinois.
Previous to this, I've been in a couple other universities and I've been a PI on faculty development grant graduate fellowship, and a couple of the R&D Awards, and so, you know, first of all, I really wanted to kind of think that NRC for these opportunities because one of the major benefits is that I see work in the nuclear materials area, and there's a lot of students that that I work with on these NRC supported grants who wouldn't have otherwise considered a nuclear energy career path.
And in addition to just students, there's also been a lot more faculty in my department and just more broadly, you know, across the country, people wanting to collaborate with me.
Who aren't from, you know, a traditional nuclear energy background.
But they're sort of excited by the research that that you all are supporting and that's going on.
That's relevant to nuclear, so definitely wanted to thank you for these opportunities because I think you know to your first bullet point or two here there's I think.
There it's really helped to drum up a lot more interest and awareness in the broader research community about nuclear energy opportunities.
I did then also wanna touch on a couple of points to your last question here about additional support and resources.
You know, I think one thing that I see a lot is there's a little bit of hesitation from some students and and faculty as well, who aren't necessarily super connected in the nuclear industry.
How are those students going to fulfill those employment opportunities and employment requirements per the service agreements, right?
So if there's some kind of opportunity for students to connect with the industry.
Either maybe a dedicated conference session and an ANS meeting or something.
Maybe some sort of workshop for student supported by NRC grants?
Just some way for them to connect and start building those networks.
I think that would maybe help you know, reassure some people a little bit about.
The employment opportunities and then you know the other thing I wanted to mention is that, you know, with inflation it it's becoming really difficult to support more than just one student on the R&D grant, so I know, you know, universities were always asking for more money, but you know, maybe thinking about restructuring and you know, either fewer awards, larger amounts or something like that, that might be a little bit more helpful to support, you know, multiple students on a on a single program.
So that's all I wanted to say. Thank you.
Patricia Glenn 38:16 Thank you so much for sharing today.
So our next person that we have in line for the queue is Steven L.
Steven, I am going to enable your microphone and then now you should be able to unmute on your end and share.
Lam, Stephen T 38:32 OK. Can you hear me?
Patricia Glenn 38:33 You sure can.
Lam, Stephen T 38:34 Yep, there's a Stephen Lamb.
I'm an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amole.
I'm the recent beneficiary of the distinguished Advanced Faculty grant you know, a distinguished faculty advancement grant, and it's been extremely helpful kind of from my perspective and from our school's perspective to starting a new program and a new lab and mixing materials and developing new collaborations and different areas, both inside and
outside and outside of nuclear.
Like there's radio chemistry includes semiconductors, electrical engineering.
In ways that are pretty unique to the NRC grants.
So there are other agencies that nominally have awards that are called a career award, but they actually are very specific in what they support and that they will support like a very specific research idea or project. Whereas my experience with the NRC faculty Advancement Grant is that its actually much more supportive of the faculty's career and also the development of a program at the university, which has allowed us to do a lot more and allowed us to get into new areas which would not have been possible without it. That's it.
Patricia Glenn 39:55 Thank you so much for sharing.
Our next person that we have in the queue is Amir B.
Me, I'm disabling. I'm enabling your microphone.
You should be able to go ahead and share and thank you for circling back.
So we could get to the last part.
Amir Bahadori 40:15 Yes, I'm Amir Bahadori, associate professor at Kansas State University.
In terms of how the UNLP has benefited our program, it's been very foundational to helping to recruit students into our nuclear program both at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Sometimes funding can be pretty hard to come by, and so specially for graduate students it's very useful to have that resource available.
In terms of additional support, that would be beneficial for applicants. I think having a little bit more information on the reviews of the applications, in particular when they're unsuccessful would be very helpful and if that information could be shared a little bit earlier in the process.
Us closer to when the before the announcements are made on the winners, I think that would be helpful as well. So, thank you for the opportunity.
Hope that feedback is useful to you guys.
Patricia Glenn 41:25 Thank you for sharing to me.
I appreciate you sharing your first comment of the morning with us today.
With that, we our next person that we have in queue is Spencer T.
Spencer your microphone is being enabled.
You should be able to unmute on your end and share with us.
Spencer Toohill - The Breakthrough Institute 41:42 Hi there.
Can you hear me?
Patricia Glenn 41:43 You sure can.
Spencer Toohill - The Breakthrough Institute 41:44 Hi, thank you so much.
My name is Spencer Toohill.
Thank you so much for a great conversation so far this morning.
I just wanted to share a couple of thoughts.
I am a recent graduate from the University of Georgia and I'm not sure if it's the school as a whole or is my program specifically, but this is actually the first time I've heard of the UNLP and I was in a policy program for both my undergrad and my master's degree.
So I kind of wanted to just take this opportunity to kind of encourage and ask the UNLP to maybe extend its reach into those policy programs.
I know a lot of my peers at the time were getting really excited and really passionate about nuclear energy, clean energy sustainability.
So I think the UNLP would have some really good opportunities for scholarships and fellowships in the policy domain as well for nuclear.
Patricia Glenn 42:42 Thank you so much for sharing.
Our next person that we have in the queue, and I apologize if I mispronounce your name, but. Kumara Y? If you could go ahead and share, your microphone is being enabled. You should be able to unmute on your end.
I mute. You will have to look at your screen, either the top or the bottom.
There you'll see the microphone icon. You'll have to tap it and that or click it with your mouse.
And that will enable your screen and your microphone and then if you run into trouble. Also, for anyone else, we do have the phone option that can be utilized as well.
Anita Chan (She/Her) 43:35 Hey, Patricia, I just wanted to clarify Doctor Kurama is that OK?
Patricia Glenn 43:42 Yes, yes, yes.
That is the only microphone enabled at the time.
OK.
So, doctor Karama, we cannot hear you if you are speaking, Please note that we do have the option for the phone that is available and then you know if you could maybe troubleshoot on your end, we would greatly appreciate it. So that we could hear your comment that.
You have for us today.
With that, we're gonna go to the next person in line and that is Jason H.
So Jason, your microphone.
Is enabled.
It's ready for you to unmute on your end. If you would do so.
Jason H. 44:27 Great. Can you hear me?
Patricia Glenn 44:28 We sure can.
Jason H. 44:29 OK.
Excellent. Maybe as well.
Some advice for other if you're trying to connect through the app on your computer or phone, it may not work. That's what happened to me before.
The microphone wasn't showing, so I connected through the browser and now it works, so that might be the issue for some others. So anyway but well, so thank you.
I'm Jason Harris, professor of Purdue University.
Long time applicant, recipient and reviewer of the program.
I wanna echo the sentiments of some of my colleagues and saying that this program has been hugely beneficial and important for our faculty and students, and in many ways life changing, especially for students that wouldn't have had the opportunity to seek higher education without these grants and many of course, have gone on and led very, you know, illustrious and productive careers in the nuclear field.
So this is extremely important, especially for some of the smaller programs, I know someone mentioned earlier.
Radio chemistry my primary area is health physics, and so we see this as a very, you know, important program for, you know, workforce development, especially in these smaller niche programs that are still very important.
So again, I just want to, you know, say very appreciative of the program and the support of NRC staff.
One area though that I think that additional support or resources could be beneficial, and this is speaking, I guess with my hat as head of the health Physics program directors organization that's run through the Health Physics Society is maybe to have more stakeholder engagement.
I know in the past, you know Nancy Hebron Israel would come to the HPS annual meetings and talk with program directors about the program, about what works and what doesn't.
And I think going back to that would be really beneficial talking to some of my colleagues currently.
There seems to be some issues with reporting.
Some of the inconsistency in reporting and with communication. And so, I think having a more regular forum to address some of those concerns would be really important because it can be a little bit frustrating for some of the applicants, especially a very large university. You know where there are a lot of layers of administration that we have to go through as recipients to try to, you know, address concerns or reporting requirements and you know we don't know if that's really understood by NRC staff about some of the things that we have to go through.
So that's just one comment, but I think getting back to having avenues or more regular engagements with the recipients would be helpful, but again, otherwise thank you very much for all that you do and for this you know supporting this very important program. Thank you.
Patricia Glenn 47:27 Thank you so much for sharing today and thank you for those tips to help out with your peers as well.
So our next person that we have in in line is Ashley W Ashley. I am enabling your microphone on your end.
You should be able to go ahead and unmute yourself.
See that?
Your hand went down.
I don't know if that was an accident or if it was up inadvertently. If you need to engage and share today, please go ahead and raise your hand again and we will acknowledge you with that.
We're gonna go back to doctor Karama.
Hopefully we'll be able to hear you.
I am enabling your microphone so you should be able to unmute on your end.
If you're speaking, unfortunately we cannot hear you.
I do offer to maybe try the phone line.
Look at the public meeting notice.
The same way you got access to this link for today and there's a bridge line number that stairs will it actually calls directly into this team's meeting.
And you can use the phone option as a reminder, though when you go through the phone option, you will need to press *5 to raise your hand and then start six to unmute yourself.
And As for anyone else that might be having some technology checks, I am holding space for a few minutes just to make sure.
Or a few moments to make sure we don't have anyone else in queue and to see if Doctor Kramer was going to be able to come off mute.
I saw that our hand went down.
Our next person that we do have in the queue, and I encourage everyone to share.
We do have some time left for this segment.
Is Bora K?
I'm going to go ahead and enable your microphone.
And on your end.
But to go ahead and unmute.
Bora Karayaka 49:23 Hello, can you hear me?
Patricia Glenn 49:24 We, we sure can.
Bora Karayaka 49:26
OK. This is Bora Karayaka from Western Carolina University.
So we have been receiving scholarship grants over the past five years or so.
We've been very thankful to NRC for the support through this program.
We have supported quite a few students specific well, actually scholarship programs. That's my undergraduate students.
They were able to move onto nuclear industries, including NRC and other places graduate schools so we are very thankful it was a life changing opportunity for our students.
One thing that was little challenging for us, I would say the nuclear related field industry to identify them over the years, although we have we received quite a quite a nice support from NRC staff.
It was really not clear to our students because some of them are students in need for financial reasons when they get offers, they cannot turn it down.
For various reasons they need to accept the offers for their financial situation and we do not at the moment if it's nuclear related or not and then it became, it became challenging afterwards of course, that they cannot give up the job and to find another nuclear related job in the in the industry.
So I would maybe recommend some kind of a database of like little more specific definition of nuclear relevance. Maybe some companies, industries that would be really helpful to us.
Some students got really confused with this, although I tried to provide.
Generally, we are fine. Maybe 80-90% of the time we are fine.
But there are some case. Like I said 10-20% we are still getting challenged specifically with students financially in need. So that was my feedback.
Thanks. Thank you so much.
Patricia Glenn 51:39 Thank you for sharing.
I appreciate that.
We do have two hands that are in queue currently and I just do wanna do a QuickTime check. We're at 10:52, will likely take these last two hands, and then we'll go ahead and transition over to segment two of the presentation today.
With that, we do have joy, Jay.
That is next in line.
Joy, I am enabling your microphone.
You should be able to go ahead and unmute on your side.
Joy Jiang 52:08 This is Joy with the Breakthrough Institute and I really appreciate the opportunity today to know more about the UNLP and how that's correlated with the Advance Act implementation.
I have question Slash comment because this is actually yes, my first time hearing of UNLP program and I did confuse this UNLP program with the DOE ALP program when I was doing my research online.
So I went to the NRC official website and I do see the UNLP program is listed under the Grant opportunities page, but that's a little bit like buried.
With the other, you know, all kinds of programs and there are some other programs that has
a clearer like hyperlink that you could just click on it and then you know what's going on with that program.
But UNLP, it's just mentioned twice.
And when I click on it I have a glossary of the useful grant and agreement terms, which is a little bit difficult to read for layman, so my suggestion would be I think your PowerPoint presentation is brilliant today, that maybe you could collaborate with the other NRC staff to make there's like the first of the Google search result and people click on that and people would be quickly understanding, oh, what's going on with the UNLP program.
How is that different from the DOE one?
Who would be qualified? Who wouldn't?
What's the timeline? If you put all those useful information there, I'm sure that your program could.
Give you know more support to the all kinds of institutions.
Students and local community, so that would be my comment.
Patricia Glenn 54:20 Thank you so much for sharing with us today.
Our next person that we have in queue is Emily J and Emily. As I am about to enable your microphone, I do wanna encourage everyone in the meeting. If you would go ahead and grab a pen, a piece of paper if you need the phone number after EM.
Gives her comment.
I will go ahead and hand that out.
Actually, let me do it two times.
I'm gonna do it now in case you already have your pen ready.
And then I'll also do it again in case you need time to get a pen and a piece of paper or something to write down.
So for those that might need the phone number, if you didn't get a chance to go back to the meeting announcement, the bridge to call in that number is 301.
Again 3015762978 and then the ID for it is.
62507809 pound.
625070809 pounds. Just a few options for anyone that might be having some technology challenges, and I will offer that again after we go ahead and take Emily's comment or either at the end of the segment.
Emily, your microphone is enabled.
You should be able to unmute on your side and share.
Emily Jones UNLV 55:59 Hi. Hi, good morning.
My name is Emily Jones.
I'm with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and I just wanted to build on a couple of comments that were made throughout this session about higher visibility among industry and being able to connect university with industry.
Being in the university, I think we're able to very easily connect.
With government entities and we do a really good job of being able to connect with them, but
industry, not so much.
It's actually quite hard to sometimes connect with those in industry that are interested.
In you know giving having student opportunities for you know, intern trips and employment and even collaboration with the university.
So if there was some sort of space that could be created for universities and industry to connect and to let industry know that these universities.
And other, you know, educational institutions are producing these students.
Would be extremely helpful.
To, you know, help place these students and help and help connect with industry.
Patricia Glenn 57:12 Thank you for sharing today.
We appreciate that.
Doctor Kurama, you are the next in queue.
I'm enabling your microphone.
Hopefully we'll be able to hear you and I just do want to do a quick kind of point of reference where we are in the meeting. We are going to go ahead and take Doctor Kuramas thoughts and then after that we'll transition over to segment 2 if we.
Can squeeze in that phone number 8377.
We will definitely do that.
If not, I'll reserve you for the.
For the second segment, Dr. Karama.
If you're speaking, unfortunately we cannot hear you.
Maybe something to consider might be trying the phone line. Your microphone is enabled, but unfortunately we cannot hear you.
So with that, we do have time to go ahead and take.
Caller 8377. I am enabling your microphone in just a moment.
I see that your hand went down.
Maybe you don't have anything to share. If you do, please go ahead and feel free to share during the next segment.
I do want to, as a point of reference for those that may be having any technology challenges today. I want to go ahead and give out the bridge number again and the pass code.
Did you need it?
That number is area code 301-576-2978.
Again area code 373015762978.
The passcode is 625070809 pound.
Again 62507.
08/09 pound and let's go ahead.
Let's see if we can squeeze in caller 88377. Your microphone is enabled.
Remember, since you're on the phone, you'll need to hit *6.
+15*******77 59:29 Hello.
Patricia Glenn 59:31 I can hear you.
+15*******77 59:34 Can you hear me?
Patricia Glenn 59:35 We can.
We can, yes.
+15*******77 59:37 Yes, thank you.
This is actually Yaya Kurama. I've been trying to unmute myself, but eventually I took the tip on just making the phone call.
I really apologize just to hand down hand up and you know all the time that got wasted, but really appreciate you giving me a chance.
So first of all, thank you for organizing this session.
Again, my name is Yahya Kurama.
I'm a professor of structural engineering at the University of Notre Dame and I am the on an R&D project.
Funded by this program, so we were able to recruit and educate a large number of students on this project.
Many of them were minority students, so we really appreciate the support that we received from NRC. We don't have a nuclear engineering program at Notre Dame, so this support really made it possible for us to bring in engineering students and introduce them into the field of nuclear energy.
So my question is about one major difficulty we had with our project in recruiting students and that was on the identification and successful recruitment of an advanced PhD student and the main limitation on this came from the US Citizenship and residency requirement.
This was a major factor.
It really reduced the number of eligible students for this project in our department.
So my question is for R&D projects that are not of national security.
Could there be a possibility for P is to maybe make a case and apply to NRC?
For this citizenship residency requirement to be waived.
Only for advanced PhD students and with justified circumstances.
And that's the end of my question. Thank you again.
Patricia Glenn 1:01:30 Thank you so much for sharing.
Was there any feedback related to Doctor Kuramas insight he shared from the UN LP team.
Sarah Shaffer 1:01:43 Hi. Hi, Dr. Kurama.
So the citizenship is, you know, requirement of the UNLP program.
So we don't have the authority to actually change that at any given time, even if it was, you know, as you had mentioned, you know for this particular PhD student in a in a part of their degree program.
We can, you know, discuss more internally, but that's kind of the policies and procedures of the UNLP program at this time.
But we will talk internally, you know, and that has been a sticking point for our UN LP grants.
So the citizenship requirement has come up several times.
It's something that we talk about internally pretty much every week and it is we are aware that there are concerns with the program and the citizenship and we are discussing it, but at this time, that is what?
Our procedures are for the for the program with regards to citizenship.
Patricia Glenn 1:02:49 Thank you for that. Follow up, Sarah, and thank you, Doctor Kramer, for taking us up on that offer to utilize the bridge line.
With that, we are going to go ahead.
Next slide, please and transition over to our second segment for the morning and this segment is going to focus on the UNLP sub program, the traineeship sub program specifically. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Anita to share with us today.
Anita Chan (She/Her) 1:03:20 Great. Thank you.
So I'm just going to share a little bit of background.
So the accelerating deployment of versatile advanced nuclear for Clean Energy Act, which we refer to as the ADVANCE Act, was signed into law on July 9th. So as part of the ADVANCE Act, the NRC has taken some actionable steps to address some deliverables.
So thank you to Mike King and his associates that are on the call for supporting that effort.
So one of the tasks identified in the ADVANCE Act is to establish a traineeship sub program under UNLP to provide focused training to meet critical mission needs of the Commission and nuclear workforce and our current timeline for implementation of the training ship sub program would be our goal would be to implement that by July 2025. So, we are currently taking some actionable steps to make that effort possible. So as part of the program, we are inviting question, comments and ideas from interested internal and external parties on the implementation of this part of the ADVANCE Act, and again we will share the larger contact form if you have questions or comments for other parts of the ADVANCE Act as well.
So on this slide, I'm not going to read the exact congressional language because that's just really not that fun to hear but it is here for your reference if you would like to see that.
I will go on.
So there are three overarching goals. As part of this traineeship sub program that will be implemented under UNLP.
The first part is that we will annually evaluate the nuclear workforce needs to implement the traineeship and identify focus training programs.
The second is that we will competitively award the grants to institutions of higher education
and trade schools that provide those structured training programs.
And the third is that as aligned to the ADVANCE Act, the traineeship sub program will encourage appropriate partnerships.
With national labs institutions of higher education, trade schools, the nuclear industry and other entities as determined to be appropriate.
So as part of this establishment, the NRC recognizes that stakeholder engagement is important in this process.
So today we are really seeking the perspectives and input of experiences with traineeship programs and you know, partnerships that would be considered under this NRC UNLP sub program.
Very short. I'm turning it back to you, Patricia.
Patricia Glenn 1:06:14 Awesome. Thank you so much, Sarah.
So I as we transition over to our comment period, as Anita mentioned, that was our presentation for UNLP traineeship sub program.
Hopefully it gave you some broad context.
We do similar to segment 1 have a set of questions that we want you to really lean into.
So similar to what we just did, our guidelines, again we want to hear from as many people as possible.
Please share again.
Everyone will remain in listening mode.
Still time to speak.
We're doing a great job of maintaining a cordial and professional environment.
Thank you for your team work with that.
And then the no regulatory decisions again are being made in the context of today's meeting. Next slide please.
Just in case someone needs kind of a quick refresher on how to participate, you should see at the top of your screen this imagery here something similar to it.
Well, you'll see actually the hand icon where you raise your hand and then over somewhere towards the leave function. You you'll see the microphone to enable. If you're on your mobile device, there may be a sub step that you need to go through, but if you look down at.
Those icons.
You should be able to get to the microphone unmute mute button.
If you're on the phone, press *5 to raise your hand, and then once you get to the portion to unmute yourself on the phone, you'll need to press *6.
Again, we are asking everyone to keep your comments within the realm of three minutes, and with that we'll roll right into the questions. Next slide please.
So the questions that we're looking for you all to explore and share your feedback on, I'll go ahead and read them into your hearing as you see them here on the screen.
So the first one is, how could a trainee ship sub program enhance and benefit the nuclear workforce and nuclear technology?
The second area is what specific skills and competencies are currently lacking in the nuclear workforce or will be needed in the future. That a traineeship program could address. Lastly,
what elements could be included in a training ship program to ensure it meets the diverse needs of potential trainees, employers and the broader nuclear industry.
With that, I do invite you to go ahead and raise your hand, whether you're on the phone or within the team's meeting web browser or the platform on your desktop or mobile device.
Please go ahead and raise your hand and we will begin.
To walk through our comments for the morning. With that, I do see you, Laurie, B&Q. Lori.
I am enabling your microphone.
Feel free to go ahead and mute yourself and share. Thank you.
BRADY, Lori 1:09:06 Thank you so much again.
I appreciate it.
Again, I'm Lori Brady from the Nuclear Energy Institute.
And I think that we all recognize that the demand for nuclear energy continues to grow and that there's a forecast of tripling the size of our workforce between now and 2025, I mean 2050.
And we also know that there's existing strains in our in our workforce in terms of supporting our plant operations and our refueling cycles.
Particularly as we look at skilled trades and craft workers, but also in areas like radiation protection professionals, health physicists and professionals, et cetera.
Of course, there's more areas of needs than what I just talked about.
But you know, given time constraints, we just want to offer up that we're willing to provide whatever data that we have to NRC to help you all as you look at developing the sub traineeship program. But we do recognize that we do need to get a fully qualified and diverse workforce to meet the needs of our industry.
So some of the things that we think are important are #1. We believe that there is room in the industry to develop stackable portable credentials.
Potentially micro credentials that align with the existing academic and accreditation programs where we can train workers incrementally to start in low-risk areas and as they gain more knowledge, move them into higher risk activities in the plant. We also believe that there's a lot of possibility to red.
Time to job readiness, job readiness.
In in several respects, rather, that means promulgating internships and pre apprenticeship programs.
Overlapping training and education opportunities to cut down on certain wait times for certain types of trainees working with community colleges to reduce apprenticeship time.
Reducing program links to gain more traction in the pipelines. For example, operator training and developing upskilling programs to allow nuclear specific skills to be taught to those outside of the industry.
Those are examples of things that we think would be helpful to be considered as you look at a potential training traineeship program.
Happy to take any thoughts or comments on those, otherwise I'll seed my time back.
Patricia Glenn 1:11:21
Thank you so much for sharing that feedback.
I offer for those that are in the meeting or I see Russell G Russell, I am going ahead and I am unmuting or enabling your microphone.
You should be able to unmute on your end.
Again, you'll have to press the microphone button to unmute, but feel free to go ahead and do so at this time.
Russell Goff 1:11:45 Yeah. No, thank you.
And yeah, those are a lot of good points that, Annie, I just rose, I'd say that.
Well, yeah. Again, Russell Goff with nuclear talent scout. And I think that like one thing that I think is an element that could be included in the traineeship programs that I think currently, like doesn't exist too strongly and that is to like make some sort of learning modules like free for example and just sort of like publicly available.
So maybe something like MITs open coursework sort of model platform but done in a way that you can actually credit people for having accomplished the classes and things of this nature because I think that when we constrain ourselves to the university system, which is great, you know, the university system's great. But like, to a large degree, students are taught things that like don't.
Necessarily translate 1 to one for like an operating plant workforce or like an advanced design like an advanced reactor designer workforce.
And so yeah, like I think that like the fact that this is a sub program and sort of being like different than the larger UNLP program.
With a bit more of a focus on different things, is a positive sign.
But yeah, like I think that another thing is that like areas currently lacking in the workforce, I would say is and that I've only seen very lightly touched on at different university course works is just understanding the NRC itself and their regulatory framework and understanding both the historical safety case framework and like the new part 53 licensing framework. And just like what is the safety basis of things and what is the design versus licensing basis. All these sorts of things.
Are areas that you know could be more, more strongly focused on in a sub program?
Such as this?
Whether that be like a university creating courses specifically geared towards that, or some you know third party sort of platform where you can just track who's taking these classes and things of this nature.
Let's see.
Yeah. And I think the other thing that that potentially this sub program could get into is.
Yeah. You know there there's drawing. You know, I think most of this being a university program seems focused on like, you know, younger people that are, you know, just, you know, an engineering major chemistry major. And, you know, the world is full of possibilities for them, but I think that also like branching out and making part of a sub program or one wing of this program to be.
You know, looking at people who are just already great structural engineers and some other industry or people who are already great instrumentation and controls engineers, but in
some other industries and sort of making a platform that is more geared towards, hey, you already know how all this stuff works, but here's just the how nuclear people do it. Sorts of stuff could be useful.
And yeah, I guess I'll cede the four again. Thanks for your time.
Patricia Glenn 1:15:18 Thank you so much for sharing those thoughts. So, I do offer for others that might have thoughts and as you maybe even brainstorming, looking at the questions again, I'll go ahead and just kind of recap a couple of those.
I'll also go ahead and give out the phone number should anyone need it again, but let's start with just kind of looking at the questions. As you all are thinking.
So again, how could the traineeship sub program really enhance and benefit the nuclear workforce, their nuclear technology?
Think about that.
The next one.
You know what specific skills competencies are currently lacking when you look at the nuclear workforce or when you think about it, what will be needed in the future that a traineeship program you know, could really address and help us with?
Also, what elements should be included in the training ship program?
We wanna make sure that it meets the diverse needs of potential trainees, employers and the broader nuclear industry and you all are.
Today. So, thank you.
We're looking forward to hearing some of your thoughts during the meeting.
Feel free to raise your hands. Did you have anything to share with us, and should anyone be having any technical challenges? I'll walk through the bridge land number really quick.
Tim, I see your hand.
Hang on to that one quick second.
We do have the number as 301-576-2978.
301-576-2978.
And pass code 625070809 pound.
Again, ID 625070809 pound.
And with that, Tim, I am enabling your microphone.
Please go ahead and unmute on your end and share with us today.
RITI, Tim 1:17:13 Hi, good morning.
This is Tim Riti. I'm a director of regulatory affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute and I work with Lori Brady and just wanted to just point out a few items. You know, I appreciate the information that Lori already shared about the growing and the demand for you know, the workforce's.
Nuclear energy continues to grow, so I just want to really just provide us some, some, some points from all that and really the advance act is really looking at.
Ensuring that the NRC and the nuclear energy.
Workforce is looking forward and getting ready for that increased demand and you know I
came from a operating nuclear power plant for many years and I was trained in various elements. And I also you know worked with the local community colleges that provided you know the course load that allowed electricians and I&C technicians and chemistry technicians to be able to come in and hit the ground running and produce a time it took for qualification.
So I really think the fact that it's focused also on the trade craft workforce and you know the other elements in in the Section 402 is really good and such a great opportunity to share ideas with a lot of the work that's already occurring you know, there's a lot of opportunities to work together and really already understand some of the information on.
The workforce and how its been changing and you know what causes folks to wanna to stay in the industry or get into the industry and a lot of the things that's already been discussed and you know, we're already addressing some workforce challenges. You know, as Lori pointed on radiation protect.
Technicians, for example.
You know the opportunities for increased internships and apprenticeship. So just wanted to also you know brief reinforce those and you know we heard earlier that communications and outreach.
Big key to this so we can get the folks recruited and attract folks to the field and get that skilled and diverse workforce.
So, I also wanted to mention that NEI is planning to submit a letter to provide further information and recommendations to consider in the area of training ship and just thank you for the opportunity to share some ideas.
Patricia Glenn 1:19:41 Thank you for your thoughts and feedback today.
With that, our next person in queue is Jana B Jana. I am enabling your microphone.
You should be able to unmute on your end at this time.
Please feel free to share.
Bergman, Jana 1:19:56 Thank you.
This is Jana Bergman. I'm from Curtis Wright. And I noticed that the slides weren't attached to your meeting announcement.
And I'm wondering how soon you think you'll be putting those in the ADAMS.
Patricia Glenn 1:20:14 Needed. Do you wanna speak to that? Go ahead.
Anita Chan (She/Her) 1:20:15 Sorry, I mean yes, they are in process of being posted into ADAMS.
So they will be shared as soon as that it has gone through. OK. Great. Thank you.
Patricia Glenn 1:20:28 That question.
So I'm I am holding space to see if there's anyone that wanted to share today but has not had an opportunity to share in the context of the traineeship program or for the segment this morning.
If we don't have anyone that has anything additional to share, we are planning to move forward within the presentation. Just to respect everyone's time, but we do want to make sure that we have the opportunity to hear for you.
So I'm just holding space for a moment or two there in case someone's looking for a button to tap, or it has a last minute thought that's popping up.
OK.
Well, I'm not seeing any.
So we're going to go ahead and advance to the next slide, Anita.
So again, as I was just sharing public feedback is really important to the NRC, actually a stakeholder engagement is also one of our strategic goals.
As a part of all of our public meetings, we do have a public meeting feedback form that we ask the public to share their thoughts and feedback, post the meeting the way that you can get to that form is if you go back to the public meeting website.
Site where you were there before. You'll see there on the right-hand side.
Recent public meetings and after the public meeting there, you'll see the feedback form. If you look at the screen, there'll be a place down at the bottom of this public meeting.
Where there'll be a link there for the feedback form. You'll also be able to access post the meeting, give the team some time to get it uploaded, but also the meeting summary, meeting slides, things of that nature which.
Anita was alluding to next slide, please.
Mike mentioned earlier during the presentation, he is again our executive lead for the Advance Act that the ADVANCE Act team is here and listening.
They have AQR code that is being associated with all of the ADVANCE Act related meetings where you can go ahead, use that QR code and contact the team about the Advance Act.
They're looking for questions.
Comments and ideas Mike, if you're still on and if you wanted to add anything related to that, feel free to jump on at this time.
I see your microphone. Go ahead, Mike.
Mike King 1:22:57 Yeah. No thanks.
Patricia, I think you pretty much covered it.
And this is a sub link under the main Advance Act website and so you'll see some more information and a recent public meeting where we laid out all of the different 20 projects that I mentioned and kind of the rough timeline for those you can find that.
On the main advance Heck website, but we definitely are interested in your thoughts, not just on this topic, but any others related to the act.
So thank you so much.
Patricia Glenn 1:23:29 Thanks Mike.
I appreciate you jumping in there. Next slide please.
So at the top of the meeting, you all had an opportunity to hear directly as part of the UN LP introduced UN LP team introduced themselves.
They have also included within the presentation their names and their contact information should you have anything additional that you needed to follow up to the UN LP with the UN LP team.
Related to so feel free to grab it from this presentation slide and then also the slides. Once they're uploaded to the public meeting notice website.
Next slide please.
With that, I am about to hand it over to Marissa for our closing remarks.
But before I do, if there was anyone that joined us today and you did not get an opportunity to sign in to our via our virtual meeting option, please do.
We are looking to learn more about our stakeholders, those that are interested in the UNLP program and also in the context of the traineeship program. So, if you could sign in there, it's a very simple form, it really just asks your name and your affiliation with that I.
Going to turn it over to Marissa to give our closing remarks. Marissa.
Marissa Bailey (She/Her) 1:24:49 Thanks, Patricia.
So I would like to thank all of you for your attendance, your, your very active participation and your feedback which we find very, very valuable.
And if you have any other thoughts or insights that that you'd like to share with us or have questions?
That you, you know, just come up.
That didn't come up during the course of this meeting.
Please feel free to contact the grants team.
The list of names as Patricia mentioned are provided in in the previous slides.
The NRC will take into account the information that that you provided and the comments that that you've given us as we move forward to either enhance the UN LP or implement the Advance Act and specifically as we work to build a nuclear training ship program under.
The UNLP.
Moving forward, we are looking to holding another public meeting tentatively in the December or January time frame. So please look for that announcement and at that time we hope to be able to further share with you the progress that we made in developing a training ship program and get some additional feedback from you.
So with that, unless Patricia, you wanna say anything else? I will.
Again, thank you for your participation and go ahead and close this meeting.
Thank you very much.