Ashley Finan is a nonresident senior fellow at the Nuclear Energy Policy Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, the director of the National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC), and a division director at Idaho National Laboratory (INH). In her roles at the NRIC and INH, she is responsible for overseeing initiatives to provide resources to reactor innovators to test, demonstrate, and conduct performance assessments to accelerate the deployment of advanced nuclear technology concepts.

Finan previously served as executive director for the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, where she was responsible for managing the organization’s strategy, operations, policy and technical development, stakeholder outreach, and fundraising. She provided expert guidance to policymakers, academic teams, industry stakeholders, and nongovernmental organizations. Finan previously served as a director of nuclear innovation at the Clean Air Task Force.

Finan earned her PhD in nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her doctoral work focused on energy innovation investment and policy optimization, both in nuclear and renewable energy technologies. She has played a key role in studies on the use of advanced nuclear energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in several applications, including hydrogen production, coal to liquids processes, and oil production methods. She has worked as a strategy and engineering consultant, primarily on nuclear energy applications. She has also contributed to analyses of the techno-economic potential of energy efficiency improvements in the residential and commercial sectors and several related topics.

Finan holds a bachelor’s degree in physics as well as bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nuclear science and engineering from MIT.