\u201cWhen working in nuclear science and engineering, we need to think about how to harness the enormous benefits these technologies offer \u2013 in medicine, in energy, in research \u2013 while also being clear-eyed about the responsibilities they carry,\u201d Associate Professor\u00a0Elizabeth Williams says.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s\u00a0not a problem to solve.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a balance to keep working at.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In terms of for or against nuclear, Williams is an advocate for understanding its many dimensions.\u00a0As the new Interim Director of the ANU Nuclear Stewardship Network (NSN), her work\u00a0has been building the\u00a0expertise, the institutions and the public trust that would mean Australia can make that decision on solid ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a teenager in the US, Williams would read Cold War histories, especially the ethical questions behind nuclear decision-making.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was fascinated by how choices made by various nations and scientists played out,\u201d she says.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe complexity of those decisions has\u00a0stayed with me and led me into this field.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Williams studied physics at Yale, where alongside her degree she wrote for the Yale Daily News. Science communication is still something\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0passionate about, and she now hosts the \u201cNuclear Matters<\/a>\u201d podcast which makes conversations\u00a0about nuclear\u00a0science,\u00a0technology\u00a0and policy\u00a0accessible to people outside the nuclear space.\u00a0<\/p>\n Having trained as a nuclear physicist, she came to ANU for a doctoral experiment and\u00a0later joined the\u00a0ANU Research School of Physics<\/a>. She served as an ARC DECRA Fellow, working on nuclear reactions, and moved to the\u00a0School of Cybernetics<\/a>, working on AI in safety-critical contexts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n When she learned ANU was thinking of standing up a new nuclear major as part of their systems engineering offering, she volunteered to lead that work and now leads the nuclear discipline in the School of Engineering<\/a>. It was the start of her deeper involvement in a community that would grow to become the\u00a0ANU Nuclear Stewardship Network<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Williams, the link back to nuclear science felt like a natural extension of the same core questions she had always been thinking about.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe thread is always the same: how do you make good decisions about something when you can\u2019t\u00a0anticipate\u00a0the consequences in advance?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Nuclear\u2019s\u00a0moment\u00a0<\/p>\n Through AUKUS, Australia has committed for the first time in its history to conventionally\u00a0armed nuclear-powered submarines. The workforce, regulatory\u00a0systems\u00a0and institutional knowledge to support this are still being built.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n For Williams, this places Australia in a much broader context.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAustralia is involved in the entire nuclear fuel cycle \u2013 from mining all the way to waste,\u201d she said. \u201cAUKUS grows our commitment to doing that \u2013 and doing it well. We need to understand our role internationally and domestically in managing that and managing it well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The ANU Nuclear Stewardship Network\u00a0(NSN)\u00a0\u2013 built over years of collaboration across the ANU \u2013 is part of that answer. Williams now leads it as Interim Director.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAustralia\u2019s nuclear needs don\u2019t sit neatly inside any single discipline. They span physics, chemistry, engineering, biology, ecology, policy, law, regulation and governance, psychology, sociology, computing and Indigenous studies,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n This includes reckoning with Australia\u2019s own nuclear history, including the\u00a0legacies\u00a0of\u00a0uranium mining and weapons\u00a0testing on Country and\u00a0their\u00a0ongoing significance for First Nations communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cANU is one of the few places in the country where genuine\u00a0expertise\u00a0across all those fields exists under one roof. The\u00a0NSN\u00a0makes that proximity count.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The educational offerings that have\u00a0emerged\u00a0under the Network focus on everything from nuclear systems engineering to safeguards and security \u2013 the latter developed with the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese programs are a direct response to a workforce gap that, if left unfilled, will constrain every decision Australia tries to make in this space,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The NSN also coordinates ANREN (Australian Nuclear Research and Education Network), which represents 11 universities and functions as a connective layer for the tertiary sector: supporting early career researchers, sharing\u00a0expertise\u00a0across\u00a0institutions\u00a0and ensuring reliable voices are available when the public conversation demands them.\u00a0<\/p>\n The long game\u00a0<\/p>\n Williams says the harder conversations in this field are about trust.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe word nuclear means many things to many people,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIts\u00a0darkest associations are bound up in Australia\u2019s own history \u2013 the legacy of testing on Country, and what that has meant for First Nations communities. For others,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a cure\u00a0for\u00a0cancer or a longer life. What it means depends on what communities\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0part of, how old you are, what you grew up with, and what you have experienced.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Williams said that Australia\u2019s neighbours are increasingly thinking about nuclear\u00a0energy\u00a0pathways of their own, and that Australia\u2019s long record in non-proliferation gives it a credible voice in those conversations. Williams says\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0an opportunity, but only if the capacity and capability is there to meet it.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe first need to ensure Australia will have the expertise, the institutions, and the public understanding to make that choice, whatever it turns out to be,\u201d Williams said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe will be in a much better place if we can inform our decisions on\u00a0expertise, on evidence, on that deep understanding of these technologies. But it takes a long time to develop\u00a0a\u00a0workforce suitably equipped to support that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe decisions we make today will affect this country for generations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This article was originally published on ANU Reporter.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhen working in nuclear science and engineering, we need to think about how to harness the enormous benefits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-701591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}