ACRS Membership
The ACRS is composed of individuals with a wide variety of engineering expertise. The membership currently includes
expertise in nuclear engineering, risk assessment, chemistry, facility operations management, severe accident
phenomena, materials science and metallurgy, digital instrumentation and control systems, thermal hydraulic and heat
transfer, and mechanical, civil, and electrical engineering. Consultants are engaged to provide technical assistance
on specific issues when required. ACRS members are appointed for four-year terms and normally serve no more than
three terms.
Committee Members
Select one of the following names for biographical information about that member:
Matthew Sunseri, Chairman, is an independent nuclear industry consultant with over thirty-five
years of experience in the safe operation of large commercial reactors. more…
Joy L. Rempe, Vice Chairman, is the Principal of Rempe and Associates, LLC, Idaho Falls, Idaho.
more…
Walter L. Kirchner, Member-at-Large most recently served as an institutional liaison manager for
Argonne National Laboratory following, analyzing, and advising Laboratory leadership on science and technology
policy and programmatic developments in the Administration, Department of Energy, other federal agencies and
Congress. more…
Ronald Ballinger is a professor of nuclear science, materials science and engineering and is
head of the H.H. Uhlig Corrosion Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). more…
Dennis C. Bley, is the President of Buttonwood Consulting, Inc., Albuquerque, NM more…
Charles H. Brown, Jr. is the Senior Advisor for Electrical Systems for BMT Syntek Technologies,
Inc., Arlington, VA. more…
Vesna B. Dimitrijevic has more than 40 years of experience in the area of Probabilistic Risk
Assessment (PRA), development and application. more…
Jose March-Leuba is the principal of MRU, which specializes on measurements, regulatory and
uncertainty analysis, and an Associate Professor in the nuclear engineering department of the University of
Tennessee, Knoxville. more…
David A. Petti brings more than 30 years of experience in technology leadership and principal
investigator of nuclear science and engineering materials-related technologies. more…
Peter Riccardella, has more than 45 years' experience working on the structural integrity of
nuclear power plant components. more…
See also the Committee
Membership Lists Since 1957.
Matthew W. Sunseri, Chairman
Matthew Sunseri is an independent nuclear industry consultant with over thirty-five years of experience in the safe
operation of large commercial reactors. Prior to starting his own executive consulting practice, he was president
and chief executive officer of Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation. Mr. Sunseri has a wide-range of experience
in the operation, maintenance, engineering, oversight and security of the nation’s commercial nuclear power
fleet. He started his career as a nuclear engineer assigned to the construction, licensing, startup and operation of
the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant. Throughout his career, he has supervised, managed or provided oversight for
activities at several commercial power stations. Mr. Sunseri has served on philanthropic and corporate boards of
directors and has been a member of the American Nuclear Society since 1979.
Mr. Sunseri earned his Bachelor of Science degree in nuclear engineering from Texas A&M University and is a
graduate of the Advanced General Management Program at Northwestern University and the Directors Institute at Emory
University. Mr. Sunseri is a registered professional engineer in the state of Texas.
Joy L. Rempe, Vice Chairman
Dr. Joy Rempe has over 30 years of experience in the areas of reactor safety and irradiation testing. Prior to
retiring as a Laboratory Fellow at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Dr. Rempe founded an instrumentation
development and deployment laboratory to support a wide range of applications, including irradiation testing at US
and international material test reactors. During her tenure at INL, she also led numerous severe accident research
efforts for the NRC, DOE, and several international organizations, including inspection and analysis efforts to
support post-accident Three Mile Island Unit 2 evaluations and experimental and analytical efforts to investigate
in-vessel retention issues in light water reactors. As Principal of Rempe and Associates, LLC, Idaho Falls, Idaho,
Dr. Rempe provides consulting assistance to US and international organizations on reactor safety and instrumentation
issues.
Dr. Rempe has authored or co-authored over 300 archival peer-reviewed journal publications, book chapters, technical
reports, and peer-reviewed conference papers on reactor safety, severe accident phenomena, high temperature testing,
and in-pile instrumentation. She is an inventor/co-inventor on four patents with one patent pending. Dr. Rempe
received NRC and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recognition awards for achievements
accomplished in the TMI-2 Vessel Investigation Project; and in 2011, she was awarded a US DOE Secretarial Honors
Award for her contributions in the US response to the events at Fukushima. Dr. Rempe is a Fellow of the American
Nuclear Society. In 2009, she was elected to the ANS Board of Directors. Between 2015 and 2019, she served as
co-chair for the Department of Energy Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee. She holds a M.S. and a Ph.D. in Nuclear
Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of
Missouri – Rolla.
Walter L. Kirchner, Member-at-Large
Dr. Walter L. Kirchner most recently served as an institutional liaison manager for Argonne National Laboratory
following, analyzing, and advising Laboratory leadership on science and technology policy and programmatic
developments in the Administration, Department of Energy, other federal agencies and Congress. He served
concurrently as chief technologist (in residence) for the Council on Competitiveness. In that capacity, he directed
the High-Performance Computing Advisory Committee working to broaden deployment of advanced computing-based modeling
and simulation, particularly of manufacturing and clean energy technologies. He began his career as a reactor
operator/engineering officer on the N.S. Savannah before joining the staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory. During
his 29 years at Los Alamos, he held division and group leader line management positions in construction project
management, defense programs, nuclear reactor design and safety projects, and applied energy research and
development activities. Dr. Kirchner’s technical expertise is in nuclear reactor design, thermal-hydraulics
and nuclear reactor safety.
Dr. Kirchner holds a Bachelor of Science degree in marine engineering from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and a
M.S. and Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ronald Ballinger
Dr. Ronald Ballinger is a professor of nuclear science, materials science and engineering and is head of the H.H.
Uhlig Corrosion Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His areas of specialization are
materials selection, nuclear engineering systems, environmental degradation and life assessment of these systems. In
addition to the courses he has taught at MIT, Dr. Ballinger has also developed and taught several industrial courses
on environmental degradation with EPRI and the Materials Aging Institute.
Dr. Ballinger has a bachelor's in mechanical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He earned master's
degrees in nuclear engineering and materials science and a doctorate in nuclear materials engineering from MIT. He
is a member of several professional societies and has chaired the Materials Science and Technology Division of the
American Nuclear Society.
Dennis Bley
Dr. Dennis C. Bley is President of Buttonwood Consulting, Inc. and a Principal of The WreathWood Group in
Albuquerque, N.M. With more than 40 years’ experience in nuclear and electrical engineering, he has served on
a number of technical review panels for NRC and Department of Energy programs and National Research Council
committees, and has been a lecturer in short courses for universities, industry and government agencies. He holds a
B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Cincinnati and a doctorate in nuclear reactor engineering from
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition, he attended Centre College of Kentucky, the U.S. Navy
Nuclear Power School and Cornell University. He is a registered nuclear engineer in the State of California.
Dr. Bley began his career as a staff engineer at the Cincinnati and Suburban Bell Telephone Co., followed by service
in the Navy nuclear propulsion program. Since that time, his primary research interests have been reliability and
risk analysis and its relationship with human performance. He is recognized for the application of probabilistic
risk assessment to a wide range of engineered facilities in various industries and for the development of methods
for human reliability analysis. He has authored more than 100 articles, book chapters and conference papers.
Charles H. Brown, Jr.
Mr. Charles H. Brown, Jr. earned his M.S. in Engineering and his B.S. in Electrical Engineering with honors from the
University of Louisville.
Currently, Mr. Brown is the Senior Advisor for Electrical Systems with BMT Syntek Technologies, Inc., in Arlington,
VA. Previously, he spent 22 years as Director of Instrumentation and Control Division of the Naval Nuclear
Propulsion Program with the Naval Sea Systems Command. He has more than 35 years of experience in engineering
management involving policy setting, planning, and technical direction for reactor plant instrumentations, control,
protection, and technical systems equipment design; development and systems integration; procurement; and long-term
support programs management for all nuclear powered ships for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program of the U.S. Navy.
Mr. Brown is a Registered Professional Engineer in the state of Virginia. He is a Senior Member of the Institute of
Electrical and Electronic Engineers and a Life Member of the American Society of Naval Engineers.
Vesna B. Dimitrijevic
Dr. Vesna Dimitrijevic has more than 40 years of experience in the area of Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA),
development and application. She was technical lead for AREVA's U.S. EPR Design certification. As a technical
expert, Dr. Dimitrijevic has participated in the development of diverse PRA methods: Risk Informed Applications for
Generation 3 plants, EPRI Risk Informed Inservice Inspection, Internal Flooding and Fire PRA guidance. She has
provided leadership for over 30 risk-informed PRA applications, and for various PRA developments in numerous U.S.
nuclear plants. She served as an instructor in the Risk Informed PRA courses offered by the International Atomic
Energy Agency, and is one of the lecturers for the MIT graduate course on the integration of reactor design,
operations, and safety. Dr. Dimitrijevic holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and a M.S. in nuclear engineering
from the University of Belgrade, and a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Jose March-Leuba
Dr. March-Leuba is the principal of MRU, which specializes on measurements, regulatory and uncertainty analysis, and
an Associate Professor in the nuclear engineering department of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He began his
career at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he did research into noise analysis and dynamic modeling, and ran
tests to determine the stability of commercial boiling water reactors. He also developed and installed
instrumentation in Russian facilities to monitor the down-blending of highly enriched uranium. During his 37-year
career as a nuclear engineer, Dr. March-Leuba developed expertise in reactor thermal hydraulics and dynamics,
reactor instrumentation and control and protection systems, software development and testing, and instrumentation
development for international safeguards.
Dr. March-Leuba has a Master of Science in industrial engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia
in Spain, as well as an M.S. and Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is a
Fellow of the American Nuclear Society and has close to 300 publications and reports.
David A. Petti
Dr. Petti brings more than 30 years of experience in technology leadership and principal investigator of nuclear
science and engineering materials-related technologies. His work includes numerous lead and chief scientist
positions at the US Department of Energy, Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, University of Idaho and the Phebus
Facility at the Cadarache Nuclear Site in France.
Dr. Petti has expertise on large nuclear technology development projects with national and international impacts. He
currently holds positions as a Laboratory Fellow and Chief Scientist for Nuclear Science and Technology Directorate
and Director Nuclear Fuels and Materials Division at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and a Joint Appointment with
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Dr. Petti holds a Bachelor of Science degree, Master of Science degree and Doctor of Science degree in Nuclear
Engineering from MIT. Dr. Petti has published two book chapters and has peer reviewed numerous journal articles. Dr.
Petti is a recipient of numerous awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award for an INL Publisher.
Peter Riccardella
Dr. Peter Riccardella has more than 45 years’ experience working on the structural integrity of nuclear power
plant components. He is an authority in the application of fracture mechanics to nuclear pressure vessels and piping
and has made significant contributions to the diagnosis and correction of materials degradation concerns at
operating plants. He has been a principal investigator on a number of Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
projects and served more than 20 years as a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
Subcommittee on Nuclear Power Plant Inservice Inspection.
Dr. Riccardella earned his bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon
University, and is a Fellow and Life Member of the ASME.
Page Last Reviewed/Updated Tuesday, July 07, 2020