The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said this week it has bulked up its technical staff, bringing the headcount at the independent Energy Department watchdog up to 116.
Known as DNFSB, the board comprises five civilian members appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to provide independent oversight of agencies and contractors at DOE defense nuclear facilities.
The group announced Monday it had added new technical staffers, created and filled a new chief information officer position, and appointed a permanent general counsel for a total staff turnover of eight.
James Biggins was appointed general counsel, DNFSB stated in Monday’s press release. Prior to joining the board, he was deputy assistant general counsel for rulemaking at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, where he had previously worked on new reactor licensing. Biggins succeeded acting DNFSB general counsel, John Batherson, who left the board in 2015.
Greg Floyd, who previously spent nearly 30 years at the Department of Defense, is the new chief information officer.
New and returning DNFSB technical staff include:
- Miranda McCoy, who returned to DNFSB headquarters in Washington from a professional development technical assignment in aeromechanics at NASA’s Ames Research Center near Mountain View, Calif.
- Chris Scheider, a former nuclear submarine officer in the Navy. In the Navy, Scheider managed nuclear operations and training, and “emergency preparedness and response for the nuclear reactor during an engineered refueling overhaul,” DNFSB said. Scheider was most recently assistant professor of naval science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.
- Fernando Ferrante, who previously worked for eight years at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s reactor oversight program, and for three years at the Southwest Research Institute’s Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analysis in San Antonio, Texas.
- Kelsey Amundson, who joins the DNFSB technical staff after a recent research internship at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in upstate New York.
- Andrew Martin, who previously worked as a building controls intern for the Purdue University Physical Facilities department in Indiana, “developing opportunities to reduce campus energy consumption,” DNFSB said in the release.
- Katie Sullivan, who joined DNFSB after working at the Southern Nuclear Co. as a reactor and systems engineer in Augusta, Ga.
