Keynote Speech

Keynote Speech #1

Thursday, December 5, 2024 09:00-09:30

From Digital to Automated: Considering Stepping Stones to Automation in Advanced Reactors

Ronald Laurids Boring, Ph.D.

Manager for the Human Factors and
Reliability Department Idaho National Laboratory (INL)

Dr. Ron Boring is a Distinguished Scientist and Manager for the Human Factors and Reliability Department at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). He has led control room modernization and human risk efforts for a variety of national and international partners, including U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NASA, and numerous industry partners.

He was the founder of the Human Systems Simulation Laboratory at INL and led development of prototyping tools such as the Advanced Nuclear Interface Modeling Environment (ANIME) and human factors evaluation methods like the Guideline for Operational Nuclear Usability and Knowledge Elicitation (GONUKE) to support control room development at U.S. utilities. He has developed the Human Unimodel for Nuclear Technology to Enhance Reliability (HUNTER) method, which is used for risk modeling for advanced reactors.

Dr. Boring has a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from Carleton University. He was a Fulbright Academic Scholar to the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and holds the honorary title of Fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES). In 2021, he was the recipient of the Don Miller Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Nuclear Society (ANS). In 2022, he was recipient of the Arnold M. Small and Betty M. Sanders President’s Distinguished Service Award from HFES. He has published over 300 research articles in a wide variety of human reliability, human factors, and human-computer interaction forums. He has served as the Chair of the Idaho Section of ANS, General Conference Chair for HFES, and Conference Co-Chair for the ANS NPIC&HMIT Conference, and Standards Champion for IEEE Nuclear Power Engineering Committee.

He presently serves as Chair for the Human Factors, Instrumentation, and Control Division of ANS and a board member of the International Association for Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management. In his spare time, he has served on the dissertation committees for 15 doctoral students.

Keynote Speech #2

Friday, December 6, 2024 09:00-09:30

Small Modular Reactor I&C Systems for Risk-informed Regulation

Hyun Gook Kang, Ph.D.

Professor
Dept. of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering (MANE)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)

Dr. Kang is a Professor of Dept. of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). Before joining RPI in 2016, he was a professor at KAIST (Korea) and Khalifa University (UAE) and a senior research staff of KAERI. He is in charge of Nuclear Plant Reliability and Information Lab and serves as the Chair of Nuclear Safety Review Board in RPI.

He was the Chair of Human Factor and I&C division of American Nuclear Society, the Chair of Korea Nuclear Society’s US chapter, and the Secretary of Publication for KNS.

He also served as Technical Program Chair and TPC member of many international academic conferences including PSAM, ISOFIC, and NPIC&HMIT. He authored more than 100 international journal articles and 200 conference papers.