This month, the Department of Energy’s STEM Rising initiative features a Q&A with Sandia National Laboratories’ Laura Price.
Laura Price is a Principal Member of Technical Staff for Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycle Technologies at Sandia National Laboratories. She has a Bachelor and Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from Rice University in Houston, TX.
Laura started her professional career at Celanese Chemical Company in Corpus Christi, TX, before joining Sandia National Laboratories as a member of the disposal of radioactive waste team in 1988. After a move to Florida in 1992, Laura worked as a Sandia contractor through SAIC during which time her research focused on disposal of radioactive wastes for which a clear disposal path had not yet been defined. She was then hired as a direct Sandia employee again in 2007, telecommuting from Arizona, where she still currently lives.
Throughout her career at Sandia, Laura’s work has primarily focused on disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste, specifically on assessing the safety of disposal of these wastes over geologic time scales. She worked on the Yucca Mountain project, where she was exposed to the multitude of scientific and technical disciplines involved in safety assessment. Laura’s work on Yucca Mountain gave her an opportunity to learn new things and a newfound appreciation for how complicated such an assessment can be. When the Yucca Mountain project ended in 2010, Laura’s work focus shifted to studying disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste in generic repositories, expanding her experience with a new and different set of physical processes that could affect repository performance.
Read the complete Q&A and view more inspiring stories by women working in #STEM at Sandia National Laboratories and throughout the Department of Energy on the STEM Rising website.