Kriste Henson, Risk Advisor  

Kriste Henson is the task manager for PNNL risk support in the Department of Energy (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Defense programs. Henson is also the risk integrator for NA-193. Prior to joining PNNL in April 2017, Henson managed nuclear explosive package risks for the B61-12 life extension program at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and represented LANL on the joint risk management board, which managed the U.S. Air Force and NNSA joint risks for the B61-12 life extension program.

Henson’s other work at LANL was mainly focused in the global security area. She also used national travel surveys to model people’s activity patterns for homeland security activity-based models and performing country assessments on the second line of defense. Henson holds a PhD in geography from the University of California, Santa Barbara, a MS in geography from the University of New Mexico, and a BS in geological engineering from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Learn more about Henson here. 

Steven Short, Nuclear Engineer  

Steven Short has over 35 years of experience at PNNL, supporting the DOE, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and national and international clients in nuclear facility safety and probabilistic risk analysis, nuclear facility decommissioning planning and analysis, project risk analysis and management, and used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste assessment. He is a nuclear engineer by academic background, with a Master of Business Administration degree, whose career has focused on the development and application of analytical methods, tools, and techniques to support project and investment decisions and to manage the risk of severe accidents at nuclear reactors. Mr. Short’s primary technical expertise is in the application of probabilistic risk technology and methods for a variety of applications, including probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants and project risk assessment for a variety of domain areas. For the last 20+ years, he has led a team at PNNL supporting the NRC in the implementation of their transition to risk-informed, performance-based regulations. This has included the development and implementation of risk-informed methodologies and approaches used in regulatory decision-making for the licensing of nuclear power plants. He is also currently supporting the development of a risk-informed, performance-based regulatory framework for the ground transportation of microreactors containing used fuel. Other current project interests include providing project risk management and analysis to the NNSA, providing technical and economic assessments of small modular nuclear reactor applications for international clients, and providing technical support to the NRC on nuclear facility decommissioning funding matters. He is a registered professional engineer in the state of Washington.

Learn more about Short here. 

Craig Maloney, Research Analyst

Craig Maloney is a project manager in the Risk & Decision Sciences group. Craig has a BS in applied and computational mathematical sciences from the University of Washington, with a minor in mathematics. He earned his Project Management Professional (PMP) certification in 2010 and is also a certified Lean Six Sigma Blackbelt. Since 2009, Maloney has managed project and programmatic risks in support of highly complex DOE projects, which range in duration from years to nearly a century, with lifecycle costs up to tens of billions of dollars.

Maloney has extensive knowledge and practical experience of risk applications for producing sound and defensible risk elicitation and Monte Carlo risk analyses. He has a long track record of applying risk assessment skills to support business development, project management, and technical contributions for a variety of technically complex projects.

Learn more about Maloney here. 

Mindy Delong-Weetch, Research Analyst

Mindy DeLong-Weetch is a programmatic risk manager for the Risk and Environmental Assessment group. Mindy earned her MBA and BA in accounting from Washington State University after earning an AA and an AAS in accounting from Columbia Basin College. She has earned a professional certificate in Stanford Strategic Decision and Risk Management and the NeuralPlan Project Planning Qualification, and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.

Since joining PNNL, Mindy has provided risk management expertise to several NNSA nuclear weapons programs, as well as to sustainable fuel scale-up projects through the Bio-Energy Technology Office (BETO).

Mindy had previously worked for 11 years at the Hanford Site, primarily in risk management as first a risk analyst, then a risk manager, and finally as the manager of Contractor Assurance. In these roles, she performed many statistical analyses supporting a variety of projects, ranging from short-term, repeated efforts with relatively low cost to projects spanning multiple years and millions of dollars. Additionally, she performed and oversaw the performance of causal analyses to prevent the recurrence of significant issues. 

During this time, she led two separate multi-entity efforts to develop and implement site-wide software packages, was a member of the Energy Facilities Contractor Group (EFCOG), and co-published “Improve Planning and Forecasting and Reduce Risk Using Behavioral Science," in September 2018.

Learn more about DeLong-Weetch here. 

Peter Lowry, Nuclear Systems Engineer  

Peter Lowry has over 30 years of experience supporting the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Defense, and international clients in nuclear facility and process safety, risk analysis, and safety program development. His career has focused on developing safety analyses and regulatory bases for high-hazard and one-of-a-kind facilities and systems. Mr. Lowry served as a member of the working groups for the development of ANSI/ANS 53.1 Nuclear Safety Criteria and Safety Design Process for Modular Helium-Cooled Reactor Plants and ASME/ANS RA-S-1.4-2013, Standard for Probabilistic Risk Assessment for Advanced Non-Light Water Reactor Nuclear Power Plants (issued for trial use).

He is currently supporting the Department of Defense in the development of a risk-informed, performance-based regulatory framework for the ground transportation of microreactors containing used fuel and the U.S. Army Reactor Program in the update and development of the Army Regulation and supporting guides for reactors. He is a member of the American Nuclear Society.

Learn more about Lowry here. 

Mike Toyooka, Nuclear Systems Engineer

Mike Toyooka is an engineer with a BS in mechanical engineering. He has over 20 years of experience working as a safety and risk analyst and design engineer. He has experience in hazard analysis, accident analysis, authorization basis development, risk assessment, and system engineering. He has performed hazard and accident analyses for DOE facilities. He has supported the development of standard technical specifications for the NRC. He has supported risk assessments for hydroelectric facilities.

Learn more about Toyooka here. 

Fleur de Peralta, Senior Advisor

Fleur de Peralta is an advisor in the Risk and Environmental Assessment group at PNNL. She received a BS in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), with emphasis on thermal science and power systems. She also received a MA in mental health counseling from Argosy University, certificates in engineering management and fire protection engineering from UCLA Extension, and cybersecurity for information systems from Harvard University’s Office of Vice Provost.  

Ms. de Peralta is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of California and has over 33 years of professional experience in projects involving nuclear power plant design, operation, licensing, and maintenance, cybersecurity programs for enterprise information systems and different types of energy generating assets (e.g., nuclear, solar, wind, marine renewable energy, biomass/biofuel), and development of data architectures and management strategies.  She joined PNNL in 2014 and has worked on various nuclear risk, environmental impact, and cybersecurity projects for the NRC, Department of Defense, DOE Water Power Technologies Office, and NNSA.  Before joining PNNL, she owned and operated an engineering services consulting firm for 25 years that focused on providing design, licensing, operations, engineering, and maintenance support for various nuclear power plants (pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors) across the United States.

Learn more about de Peralta here. 

Garill Coles, Nuclear Engineer

Garill Coles has 30-plus years of experience in safety and risk evaluations for domestic and international nuclear reactors, critical infrastructure, and other complex systems. He was trained as a nuclear safety analyst and shift technical advisor at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) N Reactor. He has led and participated in an array of Probabilistic Risk Assessments (PRAs) on U.S. and international nuclear reactors and was part of a U.S. team that provided training in PRA and safety analysis to the Russian Federation for the DOE and Department of Defense. He has supported and led numerous hazards and accident analyses, as well as documented safety analyses of Hanford’s nonreactor nuclear facilities.

Coles has also supported risk assessment of oil pumping stations for the Mexican government-owned company PEMEX. He performed risk assessments on health care concerns and has chaired the local Patient Safety organization for the last 13 years. Coles has also led research in nuclear proliferation risk assessment for the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration, leveraging Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) research in techno-socio predictive analytics and helped develop a Facility Safeguard-ability Assessment for the NuScale Small Modular Reactor (SMR).

As a PRA expert, Coles has helped review several Severe Accident Mitigation Alternatives Analysis submittals from U.S. nuclear power plants for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). He has also supported implementation of risk-informed performance-based strategies for licensing SMRs, as well as research for DOE Office of Nuclear Engineering that would integrate equipment condition monitoring into PRA. Coles has supported research on the impact of environmental factors associated with nuclear power plant manual actions in response to external flooding hazards that will support human reliability analysis used in risk-informed application. Currently, he supports the NRC as a PRA expert in reviewing risk-informed license amendment requests.

Learn more about Coles here. 

Bill Ivans, Risk Advisor

William J. Ivans, Jr., is an advisor within the Risk & Environmental Assessment group at PNNL. He has garnered over 15 years of experience in the development and application of risk-informed methods and decision support tools, having worked not only in academic- and research-based environments but also within the energy and insurance industries. After multiple research appointments at DOE national laboratories, he honed his expertise in nuclear technologies and risk applications within the nuclear industry.  Owing to this expertise, he joined PNNL to support the nuclear industry’s transition to risk-informed licensing and regulatory applications. Additionally, he developed novel risk methods and technologies in support of the DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and international sponsors—most notably with his leadership on efforts to assess risk and decommissioning strategies for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear site. Thereafter, he took on leadership positions within the insurance and energy sectors. At a global renewable energy company, he developed and implemented a series of technical and regulatory programs for an international fleet of over 40 power plants. Moreover, during his tenure with an international data analytics firm within the insurance industry, he led the evolution of the firm’s risk strategies and methods for both underwriting and pricing through advanced analytics, data science (machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms), and engineering methods. Now, being back at PNNL, he leads risk applications and research, leading to efficient and effective solutions within technically complex and highly regulated environments.

Ivans, a registered professional engineer within the State of Washington, holds a BS and MS in nuclear engineering from the University of Florida as well as an MS and PhD in fire protection engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. 

Learn more about Ivans here. 

Jason Gastelum, Data Scientist

Jason Gastelum holds a BS and MS in Operations Research and has over 15 years of experience in risk and decision analysis. As an officer in the U.S. Air Force, Jason developed models to predict the effects of high-power microwaves on electronics and to predict the success of candidates in pilot training. Since joining the Energy and Environment Directorate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in 2008, Jason has applied decision and risk analysis techniques to domains including environmental remediation, commercial power plants, carbon sequestration, and the nuclear fuel market. His other research interests include optimization using mathematical programming and discrete event simulation.

Learn more about Gastelum here. 

Jennifer Frame, Research Analyst

Jennifer Frame is a programmatic risk analyst for the Risk and Environmental Assessment group. Frame earned her BA in English from Ohio University. She a certified information systems auditor and is certified in risk and information systems controls. Since joining Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Frame has provided risk management expertise to several National Nuclear Security Association nuclear weapons programs, sustainable fuel scale-up projects through the Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office, and the National Risk Assessment Process affiliated with the National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Frame began her risk career as an auditor in public accounting before moving into enterprise risk management where she worked in both the mining and manufacturing spaces. Over the course of the last decade or so, she has developed risk profiles for large-scale construction and greenfield and brownfield projects. She also monitored corporate risks for C-suites and corporate boards and created materials that were used to make strategic budgeting decisions across Fortune 500 companies. She has helped design and implement enterprise risk management at a Fortune 200 company and trained colleagues at various levels in the principles behind ISO-31000.

Learn more about Frame here.