Anna Erickson, Woodruff Professor of Nuclear and Radiological Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, will receive the 2026 James Corones Award in Leadership, Community Building and Communication, the Krell Institute announced today.
The award is named for the Iowa-based nonprofit’s founder and recognizes mid-career scientists and engineers for research impact, mentoring, scientific-community activities and commitment to communicating science and technology. The award will be presented in May on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta.
A committee of Krell Institute collaborators and staff recognized Erickson “for her outstanding accomplishments in research, mentorship and advancing the public understanding of science and engineering.” The committee also noted that “she has emerged as a leading spokesperson for science and engineering in society … as a translator of fusion research, AI and nuclear power, and nuclear policy and technology,” providing insight for CBS Evening News, NPR Marketplace Tech, BBC News, CNN and other leading outlets.
Erickson leads the Laboratory for Advanced Nonproliferation and Safety, which focuses on bridging a critical gap between the reactor engineering and nuclear nonproliferation communities. The team integrates theoretical reactor analysis and design and experimental detection. Prior to Georgia Tech, she was a postdoctoral researcher in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Rare Event Detection group and a Stewardship Science Graduate Fellowship recipient while a Ph.D. student.
Beyond her faculty role, Erickson is the director of the Consortium for Enabling Technologies and Innovation (ETI), a collaboration of universities and Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories that is recognized as a cornerstone of nuclear nonproliferation research. Established in 2019 with $50 million in funding through 2030, ETI engages more than 50 researchers and 100 graduate and undergraduate students representing a dozen university partners.
Krell President Shelly Olsan said Erickson “embodies in every sense the three pillars that define the Corones Award. Her scientific mastery cannot be understated, yet it is her collaborative nature and visionary leadership that I find most striking. This was already evident in her time as a Ph.D. student and recipient of the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Stewardship Science Graduate Fellowship, a program that Jim Corones was instrumental in bringing to fruition.”
Erickson has given invited talks at universities, national laboratories and across professional societies and conferences worldwide. She contributed to more than 50 peer-reviewed journal publications, including Nature Communications, Physical Review Letters, Scientific Reports and IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science. She has served on boards and committees of the American Nuclear Society and the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society; and she helps K-12 students in the Atlanta area explore nuclear science concepts via demonstrations, hands-on activities and university laboratory tours.
Erickson completed her Ph.D. and master’s degree in nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011 and 2008, respectively, and earned a bachelor’s in nuclear engineering from Oregon State University in 2006. For more on her research, visit her Georgia Tech website.
Corones, a renowned researcher and administrator, led Krell from its start in 1997 until shortly before his death in 2017, building an organization known best for managing the DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, supported by the DOE Office of Science and NNSA, and the NNSA-sponsored Stewardship Science and Laboratory Residency graduate fellowships. Before founding Krell, Corones was an Iowa State University professor and worked at the DOE-supported, Iowa State-based Ames National Laboratory. He held numerous lab posts from 1978 to 1997, including program director for applied mathematical sciences, program director for environmental technology development, deputy director and acting director.
Krell Institute develops tomorrow’s leaders in science, technology and national security and communicates their stories through multiple channels. The non-profit corporation manages premier educational programs that foster collaboration and innovation in computational science and AI and the science behind nuclear stockpile stewardship. Through its community-building and media portfolio, Krell strengthens connections among science, security and society.