Kathryn Huff is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There, she is the Director of the Advanced Reactors and Fuel Cycles research group.
During her professorship, she took a leave of absence to serve in 2021 as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and from 2022 to 2024 as Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy. Prior to becoming a faculty member, she was a Fellow of both the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium and the Berkeley Institute for Data Science at the University of California, Berkeley.
She received her PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013 and her undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Chicago.
She is an active member of the American Nuclear Society, a past chair of the Fuel Cycle and Waste Management Division, current chair of the Nuclear Nonproliferation and Policy Division, a member of the Mathematics and Computation Executive Committee, and recipient of the Distinguished Public Service Award, the Young Member Excellence Award, and the Mary Jane Oestmann Professional Women’s Achievement Award. She is also the recipient of the 2024 USNIC Meritorious Service Award and the 2023 NCRP Warren K. Sinclair Medal.
