2025 North American ALARA Symposium & Technology Exhibition Announcement
(January 14 – January 16, 2025)
Sheraton Sand Key, Clearwater, Florida, USA
Information System on Occupational Exposure (ISOE)
North American Technical Center, The Grainger College of Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
OECD-NEA & IAEA
Symposium Theme: Implementing Effective ALARA Programs at NPPs
Dear Radiation Protection Managers, Regulators, and Vendors
On behalf of the NATC NPRE Technical Program Committee, I am pleased to invite you to attend the 2025 North American ALARA Symposium & Technology Exhibition to be held January 14 - 16, 2025. The 2025 Symposium will be held in-person at the Sheraton Sand Key, Florida, 1160 Gulf Blvd, Clearwater Beach, FL 33767; phone 727-595-1611. The 2025 North American ALARA Symposium & Technology Exhibition will continue to be the premier regulatory/RPM meeting of 2025.
Since 1992, the Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois has been the host university for the North American Technical Center, Information System on Occupational Exposure (ISOE) OECD NEA /IAEA. (Website: https:/isoe-network.net) NATC is composed of Canadian, Mexican and US nuclear utilities and regulatory authorities. The NATC Board founded the ISOE ALARA symposium in 1997. ALARA symposia has been held as annual ALARA symposia since 1999. (The European, Asian and Vienna ISOE technical Centers also conduct ISOE ALARA Symposia.)
The symposium program is designed to provide solutions to ALARA and RP management problems experienced in 2024 especially during refueling or maintenance outages. Please contact Amy Keep (almoeller88@gmail.com) or David W. Miller (Dmiller@illinois.edu), if you have a topic that you would like the Technical Program Committee to consider for the 2025 ALARA Symposium agenda.
The afternoon session of the second day is focused on regulatory issues from CNSC and US NRC. CNSC speaker is being invited to provide an update on Canadian RP regulatory experience. US NRC health physicists from headquarters and regions will be providing highlights of new health physics related regulations and inspect criteria of interest to Radiation Protection Departments. Historically, the greatest attendee interest was for the NRC HP Inspectors’ summary of 2024 ALARA and RP findings.
Over 15 US NRC regulators from headquarters and regions plan to attend the January 2025 Symposium. The objective of the sharing of ALARA lessons learned is to prevent the recurrence of RP/ALARA OEs.
The NATC NPRE Technical Program Committee is organizing the 2025 Symposium to facilitate planning of the ALARA Symposium and Regional RPM meetings. The 2025 agenda will be sent by early November 2024 for your planning purposes. Nominations for 2024 World Class ALARA Performer, 2024 RP Professional of the Year and John M. Palms Outstanding Innovation Awards are being solicited from September to December 2024. Please watch for the respective nomination forms/questionnaires.
The January 2025 symposium will include the following schedule:
Tuesday, January 14, 2025 (8 am – 5 pm*)
Day 1 Including Plenary speakers (US NRC Commissioner TBA, 2024 World Class Performance ALARA Award, and RPM presentations on outage OEs lessons learned.
Wednesday, January 15, 2025 (8 am – 5 pm*)
Day 2 Morning sessions on RP ALARA Challenges and Successes. The afternoon session includes US NRC regulatory presentations on observations from US NRC ALARA inspection programs, revisions to regulations and NRC RP/ALARA findings in 2023-2024.
Thursday, January 16, 2025 (8 am – 12 pm*)
Day 3 ISOE ALARA Symposium (Industry Speakers (NEI, EPRI, INPO and RPM Operating Radiological Events/ Lessons Learned).
Thursday, January 16, 2025 (1pm to 5 pm*)
Region III & IV RPM Meetings (Observations from NRC Branch Chief and RP Inspectors in Control of RP Programs).
* All times are in the Eastern Standard Time Zone.
Symposium Objectives:
Since 1997, the annual North American ISOE ALARA Symposium has steadily grown with utility RP managers attending from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The NATC Board knows the symposia could not have been so successful without your willingness to share radiological events, good practices and lessons learned from recent spring and fall refueling outages in Mexico and the US and maintenance/refurbishment outages in Canada. The 2025 Symposium will focus on the 2024 refueling outage experience, CANDU refurbishments and mentoring on HP innovative technology.
RPMs have found it valuable to bring young health physicists, ALARA Committee Members, outage, and maintenance managers to past ALARA Symposia to enhance knowledge transfer to the next generation of health physicists. Also, increase awareness of Station ALARA Committee Members on the latest NRC regulations and RP OEs. The feedback from attending maintenance and outage managers has been positive.
The 2025 winter ALARA Symposium & Technology Exhibition will continue to be the premier utility/regulatory meeting for Radiation Protection Managers and health physics professionals to exchange the latest good practices and lessons learned from innovative technology and regulatory ALARA revisions. Canadian ISOE members have completed 2024 CANDU dose trends for operating units and units under refurbishment. NATC student interns have developed ISOE Information Sheets (IFS) and analyses of major refueling outage tasks to share consolidated benchmarking RWP/REP dose & person-hours information in preparation for spring 2025 refueling and maintenance outages. The IFS will be made available to attendees.
The symposium plans to feature technical papers on the latest approaches in work management, dose control, pixelated 3D CZT technology, remote monitoring, AI, source term reduction, personnel dosimetry QA lessons learned and dose rate measurements. The symposium is held early in the calendar year at the suggestion of nuclear utility Radiation Protection Managers to assist individual plants in setting annual and refueling outage ALARA dose goals/targets.
Call for Papers:
Authors of papers for the North American ALARA Symposium & Technology Exhibition are requested to send their paper titles and abstracts to Amy Keep at almoeller88@gmail.com and David W. Miller at dmiller@illinois.edu. Additional information for authors will be provided to you by the 2025 Technical Program Committee.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact either David W. Miller via cell: 217-855-3238/email: dmiller@illinois.edu or me, via cell: 269-930-0753/email: almoeller88@gmail.com.
Symposium Registration: https://www.eventzilla.net/e/2025-north-american-alara-symposium--technology-exhibition--registration-2138627079
Hotel Reservations: https://www.marriott.com/events/start.mi?id=1686139882817&key=GRP
Hotel Reservations (Govt Rate): https://www.marriott.com/events/start.mi?id=1686139243728&key=GRP
Hope to see you at the Sheraton Sand Key in sunny Florida in 2025!
Sincerely yours,
Amy Keep
NATC Executive Administrator/Event Coordinator
almoeller88@gmail.com
269-930-0753
Cc: Brad Boyer, NATC Board Chair, TVA Fleet RP Manager
Ben Chui, OPG ALARA Manager, Canadian Country Coordinator & NATC Board Member
Jennifer Allen, Senior Health Physicist, Point Lepreau, & NATC Board Member
David W. Miller, NATC Regional Director, NPRE, University of Illinois
Casper Sun, CHP, NRC Research, ISOE Coordinator
John M. Palms, PhD, Distinguished President Emeritus, University of South Carolina & NATC Honorary Board Chair.
John Moser, RPM, LaSalle County, Constellation & Region III RPM Meeting Chair
