As Senior Vice President, Dr. Rita Baranwal leads development and deployment of the AP300™ Small Modular Reactor (SMR). She has over 25 years of nuclear industry experience and has held this role since May 2023. Prior to this role, Dr. Baranwal was Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Digital and Innovation at Westinghouse where she led the clean energy company’s global research and development investments and spearheaded a technology strategy to advance the company’s innovative nuclear solutions. Previously, Dr. Baranwal served as Chief Nuclear Officer and Vice President of Nuclear at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). She had overall management and technical responsibility for the research and development (R&D) activities conducted by EPRI with its global membership related to nuclear generation, providing support to more than 80 percent of the world’s existing and advanced commercial nuclear fleet. Before joining EPRI, Baranwal served as Assistant Secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in a U.S. President-appointed and Senate-confirmed role. She led efforts to promote R&D on existing and advanced nuclear technologies that sustain the U.S. fleet of nuclear reactors and enable the deployment of advanced nuclear energy systems. Prior to the DOE, Dr. Baranwal directed the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) initiative at Idaho National Laboratory. She was responsible for providing the nuclear industry and other stakeholders access to DOE's state-of-the-art R&D expertise, capabilities, and infrastructure to achieve faster and cost-effective development, demonstration, and ultimate deployment of innovative nuclear energy technologies. Under her leadership, GAIN positively impacted over 120 organizations. Before joining the Idaho National Laboratory, Dr. Baranwal served as Director of Technology Development & Application at Westinghouse. There, she led the creation and development of game-changing technologies and managed characterization and hot cell laboratories. Her previous positions at Westinghouse included director of Core Engineering and manager of Materials and Fuel Rod Design. Prior to joining Westinghouse, she was a manager in Materials Technology at Bechtel Bettis, Inc. where she led and conducted R&D in advanced nuclear fuel materials for U.S. Naval Reactors. Dr. Baranwal is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society (ANS). She serves on Advisory Boards for the US Nuclear Industry Council (US NIC) and the Nuclear Engineering departments of the University of Michigan and North Carolina State University. She also serves as a Commissioner on the Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) High Level Commission on Nuclear Energy and Climate Security, the Atlantic Council’s Nuclear Energy and National Security Coalition, and the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)’s High-level Group on Stakeholder Engagement, Trust, Transparency and Social Sciences (HLG-SET). Dr. Baranwal has a bachelor’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in materials science and engineering and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in the same discipline from the University of Michigan.