Indian-American Jhansi Kandasamy named new VP of Regulatory and External Affairs at The Nuclear Company

iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-

Jhansi Kandasamy has been announced as the Vice President of Regulatory and External Affairs at The Nuclear Company, a fleet-scale nuclear development company. The announcement was made on October 29. The Indian-American has a long history through both the U.S. Women in Nuclear and Women in Nuclear Global nonprofits of broadening the nuclear workforce through both the advancement of women into leadership roles and the recruitment of trades.

“Jhansi has touched on every aspect of nuclear power through her engineering work on reactors, development of public-private partnerships and significant work building up the strong workforce that The Nuclear Company will rely on to build more nuclear power across America,” said The Nuclear Company Chief Development Officer Juliann Edwards, who also serves as chair of U.S. Women in Nuclear.

Before joining the company, Kandasamy served as executive director of Idaho National Laboratory’s Net-Zero program, which is focused on bringing the organization to net-zero emissions by 2031.

One of her notable achievement is the introduction of the first electric motor coach at a federal facility, a project that earned the group a 2024 U.S. Department of Energy Sustainability Award.

She also led a cross-functional team bringing together organizations, including the U.S. Department of Energy, Nuclear Energy Institute, Electric Power Research Institute, power utilities and reactor development companies (General Electric, Oklo and Westinghouse Electric Company) to build out a nuclear roadmap specific to INL.

Talking about her appointment, Kandasamy wrote on LinkedIn: “I am so excited to be a part of The Nuclear Company! Finally, a company to drive fleet scale nuclear deployment to address the growing energy demand! I am stoked to be working for a passionate, driven leader and so looking forward to making a difference together!!!”

An official statement from her read: “The public-private partnerships that are core to The Nuclear Company’s unique business model are what most attracted me to the company. This fresh approach to financing and building nuclear power is what the United States has long needed to keep pace with foreign countries that are rapidly building out more nuclear infrastructure.”

Before joining INL, Kandasamy served as vice president of engineering services at GE Hitachi, overseeing more than 350 employees focused on nuclear reactor design and operational support. She also worked in leadership roles at PSE&G, Exelon and Bechtel, overseeing work including regulatory assurance and project management.

Kandasamy serves on the board of Women in Nuclear Global and is a past chair of U.S. Women in Nuclear. She co-founded the organization’s Nuclear Executives of Tomorrow (NEXT) program that mentors female leaders for executive roles and this year saw its largest cohort to date. Kandasamy also co-founded VIEW (Vision for Inclusive Engineering Workforce) that is helping close the diversity gap in engineering. She also serves as managing director of Sri Nagalakshmi Ammal College of Sciences in a rural village of southern India that provides no-cost/low-cost education for underprivileged students.