Presenters

Goodman joined Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in 2019 and supports a wide portfolio of projects with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). Goodman comes to PNNL with over 10 years of prior experience working for the BPA, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the Environmental Protection Agency. His responsibilities have included complex environmental planning, permitting, project management, and compliance, with a focus on all aspects of federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance.

Dr. Philip Meyer has more than 25 years of experience in applying hydrologic and hydraulic principles, model evaluation, and other methods to the solution of applied research and engineering problems. He developed and applied a methodology to estimate the combined impact of uncertainties in hydrogeologic model parameters, conceptualization, and future scenarios, and demonstrated the practicality and benefits of the methodology in applications to modeling uranium transport in groundwater and modeling groundwater flow for new nuclear reactor licensing. His experience includes applied analysis of flow and transport in soil covers, engineered barriers, and the near-field environment at waste disposal facilities, including the design and implementation of large-scale lysimeter experiments to evaluate waste form degradation.

Dave Anderson has over 25 years of experience in environmental and economic modeling and analysis. His research interests include economic and environmental impact analysis, modeling, grid modernization, and industrial energy efficiency. 

He has authored or co-authored more than 75 publications, including journal articles, conference proceedings, technical reports, and federal regulatory documents. Mr. Anderson originally joined the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in 1991 and rejoined PNNL in 2001 after four years in the banking industry. 

Laura Willingham is an environmental project manager with over 15 years of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) experience for new reactor licensing. At the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), she has led the development of several complex environmental impact statements(EISs). She has also evaluated air quality and climate change impacts from the construction and operation of proposed nuclear power plants at sites throughout the U.S., contributed to development of several EISs, and defended analyses during contested and mandatory hearings. She supports NRC’s transformation and process improvements efforts for environmental reviews and has led or supported the development of several environmental guidance documents. She also supported the re-evaluations of flood hazards for the U.S. operating reactors as part of the NRC’s Near-Term Task Force response to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. She has a B.S in environmental science from Frostburg State University.  

For over 30 years, McDowell has managed complex and controversial environmental review and regulatory projects for the Department of Energy (DOE), Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and other federal agencies. Currently, McDowell is the Advanced Reactor Program manager at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). McDowell was the PNNL lead in the national laboratory consortium that assisted the NRC in developing their regulatory infrastructure for licensing new small modular reactor designs, including the Design-Specific Review Standards and guidance for environmental review. 

Dan Barnhurst is a licensed Professional Geologist with 19 years of experience in the nuclear field. At the US NRC, he has evaluated environmental hydrological impacts of the construction and operation of proposed nuclear power plants on water quality and availability at sites throughout the US, contributed to development of corresponding EISs, and defended results as a subject matter expert in mandatory and contested hearings. He has also performed hydrological safety related reviews for new and operating reactors including leading a team tasked with probabilistic flood hazard assessments. Prior to joining the US NRC he worked at Department of Energy defense nuclear facilities and private nuclear waste disposal facilities where he performed site characterization, groundwater modeling, monitoring well installation, sampling and optimization, and groundwater flow and contaminant fate and transport modeling for development of remediation solutions. He has a M.S. in Environmental Geology from Brigham Young University where he focused on using solute and isotopic geochemistry to characterize groundwater flow and recharge timing.