Dr. Ben Lindley is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he has built a research program spanning fusion technology, reactor physics, advanced reactor design, and integrated energy systems, attracting approximately $28 million in external funding since joining the faculty in 2020. He holds a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Cambridge, where he studied reduced-moderation light water reactors for actinide recycling, as well as a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cambridge, which he completed at the top of his class. Before moving to academia, he spent six years in industry at Jacobs in the UK, where he served as Senior Reactor Physicist and ANSWERS Technical Director, leading major R&D programs in digital reactor design, advanced reactor core physics, and radiation transport code development for the UK nuclear industry. He also holds a joint faculty appointment at Argonne National Laboratory and co-founded Realta Fusion, a UW-Madison spinout focused on fusion reactor blanket design that has raised over $50 million in funding and is an awardee of the DOE Milestone Based Fusion Development Program.
Dr. Lindley’s current research includes serving as principal investigator on a roughly $20 million Fusion Innovation Research Engine (FIRE) Collaborative on fusion neutron blanket technology, as well as projects on fission-fusion hybrid reactors, digital twins for tritium monitoring, nuclear process heat, and thermal energy storage. He has been named to the American Nuclear Society’s inaugural 40 Under 40 list and holds four patent filings covering innovations in control rod design, actinide transmutation, reactor fuel assembly retrofits, and thermal reactor coupling with absorption chillers. He has authored or co-authored more than 50 journal papers and approximately 90 conference proceedings, and serves on the ANS Research and Advanced Reactors Consensus Committee.