Women@Energy features Sandia’s Sylvia Saltzstein

This month, the Department of Energy’s STEM Rising initiative features a Q&A with Sandia National Laboratories’ Sylvia Saltzstein, currently the manager of Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage, Transportation, and Security Research and Development.

In her role as an expert on nuclear energy transportation safety research, Sylvia has shared her expertise with critical stakeholders all over the world, including the Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Electric Power Research Institute, the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, the German Federation of Materials Science, the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute and the Korean Radioactive Waste Association. 

Sylvia led two DOE teams that earned consecutive Secretary of Energy Achievement Awards in 2017 and 2018. The first team collected and analyzed data on the shocks and vibrations that fuel assemblies from nuclear reactors experience during transportation, revealing that the fuel moved so little during shipping that it could be transported across the nation billions of times before any risk of breakage. The second award was for data collection work on the mechanical strength of spent nuclear fuel once it goes into storage after being used in a nuclear reactor.

View more inspiring stories by women working in #STEM at Sandia National Laboratories and throughout the Department of Energy on the STEM Rising website.