James H. Clarke, civil and environmental engineering professor of the practice and professor of earth and environmental sciences at Vanderbilt University, has been elected to the executive committee of the American Nuclear Society’s Decommissioning, Decontamination and Reutilization Division. His three-year term begins June 30, 2011.
The mission of the DD&R Division is to promote the development and use of technologies associated with the management of nuclear facilities and materials. Clarke has been a member of the ANS since 2005 and has served on the executive board of the Environmental Science Division.
Clarke also has served on the former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials (ACNW&M) as the lead committee member on decommissioning, and he advised the NRC on issues concerning the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal project. He is a consultant to the NRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACNW&M merged into ACRS in 2008) and its subcommittee on radiation protection and nuclear materials, and to the overall nuclear waste regulatory program. He has served on the National Academy’s Committee on Remediation of Buried and Tank Waste, and he is a peer reviewer for the National Academy, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.
Prior to joining the Vanderbilt faculty full time in 2000, Clarke was president and CEO of a global consulting firm that specialized in the investigation and remediation of contaminated sites, risk assessment and industrial wastewater treatment. His research at Vanderbilt focuses on the investigation, remediation and long-term management of legacy hazardous chemical and radioactive waste sites and the decommissioning of nuclear, radiological and industrial facilities.