Jennie Brooks, host of the Unstoppable Together podcast chats with Dr. Christina Leggett. Dr. Leggett is a Booz Allen associate and the lead engineer for the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Tune in as they discuss diverse representation in the nuclear industry, what Dr. Leggett is doing to advance that representation today, and why her 2022 Black Engineer of the Year award is so meaningful. You can learn more about the nuclear industry and a few of the organizations that Dr. Leggett mentions on the podcast by visiting: The American Nuclear Society: ans.org The World Nuclear Association: world-nuclear.org The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: nrc.gov The Nuclear Energy Institute: nei.org
Jennie Brooks:
Welcome to Booz Allen Hamilton's Unstoppable Together podcast, a series of stories that unite us and empower each of us to change the world. I'm Jennie Brooks with Booz Allen Hamilton, and I'm passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Please join me in conversation with the diverse group of thought leaders to explore what makes them and all of us unstoppable.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Unstoppable Together Podcast. I'm your host, Jennie Brooks, and today, I'm excited to be joined by Dr. Christina Leggett. Dr. Leggett is a Booz Allen associate and a nuclear technology science, engineering and technology advisor for the Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy or ARPA-E. At ARPA-E, Dr. Leggett helps program directors develop new nuclear energy R and D programs and provides technical oversight over several ARPA-E funded nuclear fission and fusion R and D projects. And in celebration of Black History Month, we're spotlighting her as one of Booz Allen's modern day technology leader award winners from the 2022 Black engineer of the year awards. Congratulations and welcome to the podcast, Dr. Leggett.
Dr. Leggett:
Thank you, Jennie. I am really excited to be here. Thank you.
Jennie:
I'm really excited to have you join us today. First of all, congratulations on being named a BEYA Modern Day technology leader. I'm so excited. Could you tell us a little bit about BEYA, this award and what this recognition means to you?
Dr. Leggett:
So, thank you, Jennie. So, it's a great honor for me to be nominated for the Modern Day Technology Leader award. The modern day technology leader award honors individuals who are safe in the future of engineering, science and technology, more of an early career, mid-career award. And so, this award is actually really meaningful to me because when I was back at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission several years ago, a colleague also won the Black Engineer of the Year award, and I thought, "Wow, he is really amazing. It would be really awesome if someday I could actually win that award."
And so you could imagine, years later, I was shocked and actually flattered when a colleague and friend at Booz Allen Hamilton told me she thought I'd be a good candidate and she put in a nomination packet for me. And of course, I was even more surprised when I made it to the next round review and was ultimately selected as an awardee. And so, I'm really proud to have received this award, and I'd say that the award really motivates me to work even harder to deserve this recognition from my peers and also, to serve as a role model to young Black girls and women everywhere.
Jennie:
Awesome. Congratulations and we're so proud to have you out there with this recognition as well. You said that it was sort of like a mid-career recognition. Can you take us back? How did you get interested in STEM? Was it something that you were always interested in as a child and you've studied all the way up? What does your journey look like? I mean, we're talking about energy and nuclear energy solutions to boot. What does your journey look like?
Dr. Leggett:
Oh, yeah. Good question. Thanks, Jennie. So firstly, I'll start by saying I was always interested in STEM. Math and chemistry were my favorite topics. I was originally interested in going to medical school, so I was always mixing what I thought were cures for cancer and digging up rocks, just doing all kinds of really diverse scientific activities. But at the time, I was a kid, I didn't know about nuclear science, right? And so, it wasn't until I got to high school, AP chemistry, when my AP chemistry teacher taught us a module in nuclear chemistry. And I just thought that was the most amazing thing, the fact that you could split the atom and release so much energy that could be used to make electricity, to help diagnose and treat cancer, do so many other things. And to give you an idea of how dense nuclear energy is, one uranium fuel palate creates as much energy as a ton of coal or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas.
And so, I thought that was really cool, right? And even though I thought that was cool, I was still planning to pursue medicine, maybe even nuclear medicine, to use it to diagnosed and treat cancer, but I think when I got to undergrad, that's when things really changed. The story goes that I went into my honors chemistry class and I announced to my teacher I want to study nuclear chemistry. And she said, "Well, you're in luck. There's a famous nuclear chemist here by the name of Greg Chopin."
And so, that actually started my career in nuclear. He actually was responsible for... When he worked with Ben Seaborg and discovered a couple of the elements on the periodic table and he actually facilitated me getting into nuclear science, because Florida State University didn't actually have a nuclear chemistry program at the time. And so, I had to do a lot of summer internship in nuclear science. And so, once I finished that, I decided to go into grad school to do nuclear engineering. So, it was actually a really fun experience. My area of expertise was actually in recycling nuclear waste. So when people talk about, "What about the waste?" I say, "You recycle it." Right? Just like glass, paper, anything else.
Jennie:
And was that at the time that you were studying it and going into it somewhat niche? You're in grad school and how many are in your class in this field?
Dr. Leggett:
At that time, nuclear science, nuclear engineering in general, was on a downward slope, right? So departments were closing across the country. Not many departments were offering nuclear chemistry. And even then, those departments were small. I had the fortune of going to the nuclear chemistry summer school, which for my class, there was 12 people selected from across the country for this program and I was the only person of color in that cohort, I believe. But then, when I got to graduate school at UC Berkeley, the department was really small. I think we had maybe 40 graduate students total and maybe half that in undergrad. And so again, in those cases, I was also still the only Black female or Black person in the department at the time.
Jennie:
And how much of that played in your reflections, if at all, if you're the only black female person in the class in this really spectacular study? Do you carry that with you? Is it something that's not really material to the experience or what was it for you?
Dr. Leggett:
I mean, it was something I was aware of. I had a really good experience, right? I mean, I never felt like, "Oh, I'm the only black person in this department." But what I did do was I got involved with various outreach programs focused on increasing the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in STEM. So, I was doing some outreach in that area while I was a graduate student. And I'd also gotten involved with the Black Graduate Engineering Science Students Association, and that included graduate students from across the STEM field at Berkeley, so engineering, physics, math, et cetera. So it was more like I was disappointed about it, but I had an overall really good experience. Yeah. And I would say as someone who came from Mississippi, when I went to Professor Chopin's lab, it was a small group, maybe 10 people, 10, 12 people, but they were from all over the world.
Jennie:
Wow.
Dr. Leggett:
I worked with people from Russia, I worked with people from India, from Sierra Leone, France. In Italy, I think. And so, it was just a massive cultural exchange. It was amazing. Mississippi is 60% white people and 40% black. So this was an amazing cultural exchange for me. And they were all working on radio chemistry, doing work related to recycling [inaudible 00:08:28] fuel. And I just thought, "Wow, this was..." It was really pleasant. And then of course, going to Berkeley was another wonderful opportunity to see even more diversity and work with people. My department, even though I was the only black person in the department at the time, we had people from, again, all over the world working together and we've had long friendships, even outside of graduate school. And I just think this is the face of our country.
I think our country is stronger for it. It's more beautiful for it, and I want to see that. I mean, you learn so much from people's different perspectives based on their culture, from where they came from, from their socioeconomic background. There's just so much there and not only is it formative from a cultural perspective, but they also... They have different approaches to solving problems. And so, there have been studies that show the benefits of diversity and inclusion in the workplace as far as innovation.
Jennie:
Yes. Thank you for sharing. I know you're also a member of the board of directors of the American Nuclear Society, and you're also the vice president of its Fuel, Cycle and Waste Management division. There's so much potential out there for nuclear as an energy solution. What are you hoping to achieve by serving in these roles? Tell us a little bit about this work.
Dr. Leggett:
Oh, yeah. So first, I guess I should tell people what the American Nuclear Society is. It is, in my opinion, the nation's premier professional nuclear organization. It has members from across the nuclear field and industry, academia, government, nonprofit organizations and elsewhere, and I see this large organization of professionals as a resource for the country. And so, in my role as a member of the board of directors, what I'd like to do is expand ANS' role in decision-making, regarding nuclear technology. So that's not just nuclear energy, it's nuclear medicine. There's nuclear propulsion. I think I haven't mentioned that yet, but there's so many applications of nuclear technology. So NASA's looking at that for space. Now we're starting to look at using nuclear processed heat, the large amounts of high quality heat that's produced from nuclear reactors for decarbonizing other sectors, the pharmaceutical industry, the chemical industry, oil and gas industry.
And so, I see a lot of these people who are working on these areas are members of ANS, and I want to find a way to leverage that collective expertise to expand ANS' role in that decision-making. Another thing I want to do is help diversify the nuclear industry and also increase access to nuclear power and its benefits by underrepresented and underserved communities. So, it's well known, in my opinion, that communities that have a nuclear power plant, they tend to have higher incomes. I mean, nuclear is essentially one of the highest paying jobs in the energy industry. And so, communities that have nuclear power plants have higher incomes. They get the two car garages and the two-story homes, and they have well funded schools and things like that. But it seems that these communities tend to be overwhelmingly white for whatever reason.
And I think that this is an opportunity for the industry to actually make an effort to expand into those communities so that they can get those benefits as well. And I think part of that involves doing outreach to different communities, to different universities about nuclear power as a clean energy source. I think there are a lot of stigmas that are associated with nuclear based on its history, starting from World War II...
Jennie:
Right.
Dr. Leggett:
... and I think so much has happened since that time. We have such an excellent handle on nuclear power. We have the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which does, in my opinion, a great job of regulating the civilian nuclear industry to help ensure that people are benefiting from the safeties of nuclear power. And so, I think some outreach needs to be done to help do that. And so, I'll end by saying that the American Nuclear Society does also have a K through 12 outreach program that does help teachers teach nuclear power in the classroom, and I'd like to see those topics being taught in schools with the underrepresented students.
Jennie:
When you talk about the outreach and the future and increased representation in this field, what else comes to mind? What else can we be thinking of to support your objectives there?
Dr. Leggett:
That's a great question and it leads me to bring up a really important point, right? So I think one reason that people may be hesitant to go into nuclear industry is the word nuclear. They think, "Well, in order for me to go into the industry, I have to be in nuclear." And it turns out, we need everyone, right? And so, we have to get the message out that, "Hey, you don't just have to have a PhD in nuclear engineering. We need people in material science and chemistry and physics and geology, all kinds of fields to go into nuclear." And so, I think that, again, that outreach could involve going to schools, even to schools that don't have nuclear engineering programs, to let them know about the possibilities and roles they play. We've been focused a lot on STEM, but we also need people who are even not in STEM, and I think my experience at the NRC really drove that home for me.
I guess I'm saying that, yeah. We need people from many different walks of life in the nuclear field. It's not just nuclear reactor physics, there's radiation biology, there's radio chemistry, radio geochemistry, isotope geochemistry, aerospace engineers can work on nuclear space propulsion. There's just so many different areas. Another thing I say, because again, I'm focused on improving diversity in the field, is I think it's helpful for those of us in the nuclear industry to try to go to conferences that bring together people from universities from all across the country that may or may not have nuclear and set up booths to do outreach and talk to them about nuclear power, right? I think that's one thing.
Jennie:
Well, Dr. Leggett, it's clear to me, you are the modern day technology leader, and I'm so inspired by you and your impact and your leadership and so grateful to work alongside you and learn more about nuclear, because I think you're right, that I think there's just certain perceptions or stigmas that sometimes follow it, while it offers great potential. And with leaders like you at the helm, without question, we've got a bright future ahead. At the end of every podcast, we give our guests some free space to share their final thoughts. What would you like to leave with those listening today?
Dr. Leggett:
Well, I'd say first, nuclear power is a very clean source of electricity. It's the nation's largest provider of carbon free or clean electricity in the country. People tend to dwell on the waste that are produced from nuclear power. And I would say a couple of things on that. Firstly, the current nuclear reactors we have right now only use about 5% at most of the energy potential in those small fuel [inaudible 00:16:26]. And so, there are new and advanced reactors under development right now. There are a lot of companies out there that are trying to develop and demonstrate these reactors that can actually allow you to burn even more of that fuel. If we can do that, right? The actual amount of waste that we generate would go down significantly. Like I said, the amount of waste that we're talking about compared to the amount of energy that you've gotten out of nuclear is really, really small.
It's also a very dense energy source. It has many different amazing applications, so not just for power. Like I said, it's also processed heat, so if you want to use it to create other specialty chemicals, do district heating, district chilling, desalination, which is something that's very important in other countries that don't have access to clean water, you can do things like that. Also, there is interest in nuclear propulsion. If you want to go to Jupiter and beyond, right now, the best technology for that is nuclear power.
And so, there's so many benefits of that. Another concern that people tend to bring up is safety. We have the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is committed to ensuring the safe operation of nuclear reactors. I can tell you that they operate very safely, right? We haven't had any significant accidents in nuclear in decades. And even from the last reactor accident that we had, there were a lot of lessons learned from that, that have been implemented to further improve the safety of these reactors. And then, I guess lastly, come join us. We're looking for people from all walks of life to join the nuclear industry.
Jennie:
Be a part of this exciting future. I'm just so grateful for your sharing with us today. It's awesome. It's very, very cool.
Dr. Leggett:
Yeah, this was really fun and good to see you as well.
Jennie:
Thanks for listening. Visit careers.boozallen.com to learn how you can be unstoppable with Booz Allen. Be the future. Work with us. The world can't wait.