After serving two years as the Department of Energy’s assistant secretary for Nuclear Energy, Kathryn Huff will vacate that position on May 3 and return to teaching. Huff had started at the DOE in May 2021, serving for one year as the principal deputy assistant secretary for Nuclear Energy.

“Serving in this capacity has been an unparalleled privilege, and I’m immensely grateful for the opportunity to have worked alongside you--the dedicated and talented public servants in Nuclear Energy, in DOE, and across the Biden-Harris Administration,” Huff wrote in an email announcement to colleagues last week. “I chose this timing to enable the smoothest transition back to my professorship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where my beloved research, students, husband, and dog await...”

... “Reflecting on the past three years, I’m astonished by the tangible progress the U.S. has made in nuclear energy,” Huff said in her note to colleagues. “Reactors once destined to shut down now have a role in our 2035 and 2050 goals, new reactors are coming online, and the commercialization of advanced reactors has begun. We’re also securing the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle, restarting a consent-based approach to spent nuclear fuel management, and expanding international cooperation on peaceful nuclear technology. Perhaps most notably, the U.S. joined a groundswell of other nations in committing to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050 (to) address the climate crisis and improve energy security.”

She added, “I will, of course, continue to contribute to the advancement of nuclear energy however I can, for as long as I can, from wherever I am.”