For nuclear energy to truly fulfill its promise as a cornerstone of clean energy, its economic viability must match its environmental benefits. This critical challenge is being addressed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where Lauren Fortier, a second-year doctoral student in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE), is at the forefront of developing innovative remote operation protocols for autonomous control of nuclear plants. Her groundbreaking work aims to dramatically reduce the operational costs associated with nuclear facilities, thereby making this powerful, carbon-free energy source more competitive and accessible for future global energy needs.
Fortier’s journey into the intricate world of nuclear operations began long before her arrival at MIT, rooted in a unique blend of academic rigor and high-stakes, real-world experience. After completing an undergraduate degree in materials science and engineering from Northwestern University, where she attended on an ROTC scholarship, Fortier served as a naval nuclear operator. Her tenure included supervising nuclear plant operations aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier, navigating the strategic waters of the South China Sea. This experience offered an unparalleled immersion into the absolute reliance on nuclear power in a demanding operational environment. "It was a unique experience that you don’t easily see anywhere else, especially the complete reliance on nuclear power. The only way you’re moving through the ocean is if you have that nuclear reactor working," Fortier recalls, highlighting the immense responsibility and precision required.
During her time as a naval nuclear operator, Fortier developed a profound appreciation for the operational aspects of nuclear technology, delving into the underlying science that governs plant functions. Concurrently, she became acutely aware of the labor-intensive nature of many plant operations and recognized significant process shortcomings. The observation that many critical functions were extremely manually intensive sparked a fundamental question: could these operations be streamlined and made less reliant on constant human intervention? This insight would ultimately shape the trajectory of her academic and research career, laying the groundwork for her pursuit of autonomous nuclear plant operations.
The Evolving Landscape of Nuclear Energy and the Imperative for Automation
The global energy landscape is currently undergoing a profound transformation, driven by the dual imperatives of mitigating climate change and meeting an ever-increasing demand for reliable, clean power. Nuclear energy stands as a critical solution, offering carbon-free electricity generation with a high power density and exceptional reliability. However, its widespread adoption has historically been hampered by several factors, including high upfront capital costs, lengthy construction schedules, complex regulatory hurdles, and, significantly, substantial operational expenses largely driven by the extensive human staffing requirements of traditional large-scale reactors.
Conventional nuclear power plants, known as "legacy plants," are massive facilities designed to operate at 100 percent capacity for decades. Their scale and complexity necessitate a large, highly trained staff of operators, engineers, and maintenance personnel to ensure continuous, safe operation. The sheer volume of power delivered by these facilities has historically justified the considerable costs associated with maintaining such a large human workforce. However, the future of nuclear energy is increasingly envisioned through the lens of smaller, more flexible designs: Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and microreactors. These next-generation reactors, designed for distributed power generation in diverse settings, from remote communities and industrial sites to military bases, promise greater deployment flexibility and lower initial capital costs. Yet, for these smaller units to be economically competitive and widely deployable, they cannot afford the same extensive staffing models as their larger predecessors. This is where Fortier’s research becomes indispensable, addressing the critical need for supervised and thoroughly vetted autonomous operations to unlock the full potential of these advanced reactor designs.
From Naval Operations to Academic Rigor at MIT
Fortier’s transition from the demanding operational environment of the Navy to the cutting-edge research setting of MIT was a natural progression, facilitated by a unique opportunity. While contemplating the inefficiencies of manual operations, the Navy offered Fortier a chance to pursue a master’s degree in an approved discipline. Building on her overwhelmingly positive experiences in nuclear operations, she opted for nuclear engineering at MIT, seeing it as an ideal extension of her practical background into the academic realm. "My experiences in nuclear up until then had been overwhelmingly positive, so I thought I would build on them and move from the operations realm to the academic realm," Fortier explains. The intense, disciplined training she received in the Navy proved to be an invaluable asset, preparing her meticulously for the rigorous academic demands at MIT.
For her master’s degree, Fortier embarked on foundational research, developing a supervisory control system specifically designed for the operation of nuclear plants. Her work involved extensive experimentation with a sophisticated simulator that accurately replicated the complex thermal-hydraulic responses of a nuclear reactor. The underlying assumption, critical for the practical application of her research, was that the lessons learned and the systems developed through these simulations would directly translate to real-world equivalents, paving the way for more efficient and safer operations in actual nuclear facilities. This initial foray into supervisory control systems underscored the immense potential of automation, yet it also revealed that her master’s research was merely the "tip of the iceberg," with significant work remaining to fully realize the vision of autonomous nuclear plant operations.
The Pursuit of Fully Autonomous Nuclear Plant Operations
The central question driving Fortier’s doctoral research is "How do we transition to autonomous operations in nuclear power plants?" Her vision extends beyond piecemeal automation, advocating for an integrated approach—a central supervisory control system rather than a multitude of interlinked but separate components. This ambition presents a formidable challenge: modifying operational frameworks that have been inherently human-centric for decades to seamlessly incorporate machine intelligence and control.
Fortier quickly recognized that any supervisory control system, no matter how meticulously designed, would face severe limitations if its inherent rigidity prevented it from accommodating both human and machine operators. The traditional human-centric design, she observes, "doesn’t allow you to choose the best way to do a procedure." Instead, Fortier envisions a paradigm of "human-machine teaming," where humans and computers strategically collaborate, each performing the tasks they are best suited for, with human intervention delivered only when necessary. This approach not only optimizes efficiency but also maintains a crucial layer of human oversight, addressing potential safety concerns and building trust in automated systems.
This ambitious goal, extending far beyond the scope of a master’s thesis, naturally led Fortier to pursue a doctorate. She completed her master’s in 2025 and has since continued her research toward a PhD, focusing intensely on refining and implementing her vision for autonomous operations. Her doctoral work, projected to conclude with a MathWorks Engineering Fellowship from 2026-2027, is poised to make a significant impact on the nuclear energy sector.
MIT-Facilitated Collaborations: A Nexus of Expertise
A hallmark of Fortier’s research journey has been the strategic leveraging of MIT’s unparalleled collaborative ecosystem. Recognizing that the challenge of devising an effective and easily adopted autonomous supervisory control system for nuclear plants required diverse expertise, Fortier actively engaged with leading experts across institutions and disciplines.
Her research advisor, Sacit Cetiner, holds a joint appointment with MIT’s Nuclear Reactor Laboratory and the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). This dual affiliation provided an invaluable bridge to the INL, a premier national laboratory with extensive capabilities in nuclear research and development. Through this connection, Fortier collaborated with Katya Le Blanc, a senior human factors scientist at INL. Le Blanc’s expertise was crucial in addressing the complex human-machine interface aspects of autonomous systems, ensuring that the designs are intuitive, safe, and effective for human operators when intervention is required. Furthermore, a collaboration with the Human System Simulation Laboratory at INL provided Fortier with a deeper understanding of designing robust cyber-physical systems, allowing for realistic testing and validation in simulated environments. "I’m very much an engineer and don’t have a lot of experience in human behavior, so the collaboration with INL was a huge benefit for me," Fortier notes. "I got better insights into many aspects, including what you want to see when a human has to take over for a machine when it’s no longer working."
Beyond national labs, Fortier also forged vital industry connections. She completed a summer internship in 2025 with Westinghouse, a global leader in designing and vending current and next-generation nuclear power plants. This internship provided a critical platform for her to test-drive her ideas about autonomous operations solutions in a practical, industry-relevant context, receiving invaluable feedback from seasoned professionals.
Within MIT, her research benefits from the guidance of two co-advisors. Anuradha Annaswamy, a founder and director of the Active-Adaptive Control Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, is a recognized expert in control theory. "She’s a control systems expert, which really benefits me because while I can explain what to do with a nuclear power plant, she can help me understand better how to go about operations from a control systems perspective," Fortier explains. Annaswamy provides crucial advice on the supervisory control system framework and its execution, while Fortier further strengthens her foundation in the discipline by taking specialized control systems classes. Her other co-advisor is Curtis Smith, the former director for INL’s Nuclear Safety and Regulatory Research Division, now the KEPCO Professor of the Practice of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT NSE. Smith brings deep expertise in nuclear safety and regulatory research, ensuring that Fortier’s designs adhere to the highest standards of safety and can navigate future regulatory landscapes. This multidisciplinary mentorship, combining engineering, human factors, control theory, and regulatory insight, exemplifies the comprehensive approach required for such transformative research.
A Step-by-Step Progression Toward Transparent Autonomy
Crucially, Fortier’s approach to designing automated operations systems emphasizes a gradual and systematic move toward autonomy, specifically engineered to build trust with users. Her philosophy is rooted in reassurance: "When we introduce an automated procedure that walks you step by step through what you would be doing anyway, it is reassuring and builds trust," Fortier points out. This methodical integration ensures that operators become comfortable with automated systems by seeing them perform familiar tasks reliably and transparently, gradually increasing their confidence in more advanced autonomous functions.
A cornerstone of Fortier’s doctoral work is the incorporation of "objective-oriented operations." Unlike traditional systems that follow rigid, predetermined operating procedures, her control system is designed to autonomously create the optimal sequence of events needed to achieve a specific objective. This provides greater flexibility and adaptability, allowing the plant to respond more intelligently to changing conditions without human intervention for every minor adjustment.
Another key aspect of her research, particularly reassuring for safety-critical applications like nuclear power, is her development of automation based on "finite state automata." This contrasts sharply with data-driven statistical approaches like machine learning or AI. Finite state automata is a discrete event system, meaning every move within the automation framework is explicitly event-driven: "if this happens, do that." This design principle makes the system inherently transparent in its execution, allowing for clear understanding, prediction, and auditing of its behavior. It adjusts for current conditions in the plant and transitions between various states or events with unambiguous logic. Fortier extensively studied finite state automata during an internship at INL in summer 2024, recognizing its distinct advantages for nuclear applications. "We’re not using a data-driven statistical approach like machine learning because we do not yet have the tools to validate the operation of such systems," Fortier clarifies, underscoring the paramount importance of verifiability and transparency in nuclear safety. This conventional automation approach, while addressing a complex problem, prioritizes reliability and accountability over the "black box" nature often associated with advanced AI.
Future Impact and Broader Implications
The potential impact of Lauren Fortier’s work on developing automation for nuclear plants is immense, promising to reshape the economic and operational landscape of the industry. Her research has already garnered significant recognition, as evidenced by her being one of the winners of the 2025 Innovations in Nuclear Energy Research and Development Student Competition from the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy University Program. Further cementing her standing as a leader in the field, she was named a 2026–2027 MathWorks Engineering Fellow, which will allow her to continue advancing this vital work.
The successful implementation of Fortier’s nuclear plant automation program on next-generation equipment, particularly microreactors, will deliver the necessary traction for their widespread commercial deployment. Currently, the prohibitive cost of staffing for small, distributed reactors significantly hinders their economic competitiveness. By drastically reducing the need for large, round-the-clock human operational teams, autonomous systems can make microreactors financially viable for applications in remote communities, industrial complexes, military bases, and even disaster relief efforts, where clean, reliable power is desperately needed but traditional grid infrastructure is lacking or insufficient. This shift could unlock billions of dollars in investment and accelerate the transition to a carbon-free energy future.
Beyond direct economic benefits, the implications extend to enhanced safety and reliability. By reducing opportunities for human error, automating routine and complex procedures, and enabling faster, more precise responses to operational anomalies, autonomous systems can significantly improve the overall safety profile of nuclear plants. The transparency of finite state automata ensures that these automated decisions are understandable and auditable, fostering confidence among regulators and the public.
However, the path to full autonomy is not without its challenges. It will require the development of new regulatory frameworks that can adequately assess and certify the safety of autonomous nuclear systems. Regulators globally, including the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, are already beginning to explore these issues, and Fortier’s research will provide critical insights to inform these discussions. The workforce will also need to adapt, shifting from manual operation roles to overseeing, maintaining, and developing these advanced automated systems, necessitating new training and skill sets.
The immediate next step for Fortier’s research involves scaling the supervisory control system, building on insights gained from work on smaller aspects of control. She expresses profound excitement about the journey ahead and the transformative possibilities her research holds. "The collaborations with other people, and the relationships we have established with stakeholders, have really helped make an impact and supported the relevancy of the work," she states. "Sometimes when you’re stuck in your own bubble, that outside perspective is really useful." This collaborative spirit, combined with her innovative technical approach and deep understanding of both the operational and academic facets of nuclear energy, positions Lauren Fortier as a pivotal figure in shaping a more economical, safer, and sustainable future for nuclear power.
