Conference: CET: Workforce Accelerator for Fusion Energy Technology Development

This award was in response to Dear Colleague Letter 23-108 on Conference Proposals on Clean Energy Topics. This award supports the organization of a conference focused on workforce development needs for future fusion energy technologies. The fusion energy research and development landscape has seen significant changes in the last several years, with important scientific and technological breakthroughs and a rapid rise of investment in the private sector.

The workforce needs of the nascent fusion industry are growing at a rate that academic workforce development programs are not currently able to match. This conference will explore new types of educational and research-based fusion energy training programs that can be developed at institutions spanning the range from trade schools and community colleges to research intensive universities.

The conference is planned to be held near Hampton University in late May of 2024, and will focus on bringing public and private stakeholders together to identify opportunities for partnership in fusion research and education with the goal of meeting the needs for a talented, diverse workforce.

The workforce needs of the emerging fusion energy industry and the national research laboratories within the public sector are highly interdisciplinary. They span a range of professions and necessary levels of technical preparation from technicians to PhD-level scientists and engineers, and need individuals trained to engage communities to establish the social license for fusion energy technology more broadly.

The goals of the conference include: (1) identifying technical challenges in fusion energy science and technology to be targeted for workforce expansion, (2) enumerating existing workforce development capabilities and the status of key performers, (3) revealing opportunities for filling the gaps in developing an inclusive and interdisciplinary fusion energy workforce. A key deliverable of the conference will be a white paper with a set of recommendations on how to best address the workforce development needs for future fusion energy technologies.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.