Kristine L. Svinicki

The Honorable Kristine L. Svinicki was designated Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by President Donald J. Trump on January 23, 2017. She was sworn in for her second term as a Commissioner to a term ending on June 30, 2017. Her previous term as a Commissioner began on March 28, 2008.

Ms. Svinicki has a distinguished career as a nuclear engineer and policy advisor, working at the state and federal levels of government, and in both the legislative and executive branches. Before joining the NRC, Ms. Svinicki spent over a decade as a staff member in the United States Senate advancing a wide range of policies and initiatives related to national security, science and technology, and energy and the environment. She also served as a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee for the Committee's former Chairman, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and, subsequently, for the Committee's ranking Republican member, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. There, Ms. Svinicki was responsible for the Committee's portfolio of defense science and technology programs and policies, and for the atomic energy defense activities of the U.S. Department of Energy, including nuclear weapons, nuclear security, and environmental programs.

Previously, Ms. Svinicki worked as a nuclear engineer in the U.S. Department of Energy's Washington, D.C. Offices of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology, and of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, as well as its Idaho Operations Office, in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Before that, she was an energy engineer with the State of Wisconsin at the Wisconsin Public Service Commission in Madison, Wisconsin.

Born and raised in Michigan, Ms. Svinicki earned a bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Michigan in 1988. She is a longstanding member of the American Nuclear Society, where she served two terms on the ANS Special Committee on Nuclear non‒Proliferation. In 2006 and 2012, the Society honored her with its Presidential Citation in recognition of her contributions to the nuclear energy policies of the United States and the regulatory framework guiding its development and use. She has served as a member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Task Force on Global Nuclear Materials Management, and as an Expert Advisory Panel Member to the NRC on assessing the future of regulatory research needs. She was selected as a Stennis Congressional Fellow of the 108th Congress, as a Brookings Institution Legis Congressional Fellow in 1997, and as the University of Michigan College of Engineering Alumni Society Merit Award recipient for Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences in 2009.