J’Tia Hart’s career has focused on the intersection of soft skills and technical knowledge in nuclear energy and nonproliferation.
In 2010 Hart became the first Black woman to earn a PhD in nuclear engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. After holding several jobs at national laboratories and in government, she took the reins as the director of the nuclear nonproliferation division at Idaho National Laboratory in late 2022. She oversees a budget of roughly $160 million and leads some 130 full-time scientists, engineers, and researchers who work in such areas as radiochemistry, nuclear facility inspection, arms treaty verification, and nuclear cybersecurity.
In 2014 Hart took a roughly two-month break from her job at Argonne National Laboratory to take part in the CBS reality show Survivor. “I didn’t win $1 million,” she says, “but it was an interesting experience.” She later parlayed that experience into efforts to improve conditions at the show for people from underrepresented groups.
Hart is also involved in activities to attract and retain underrepresented groups in the sciences. For example, she was part of the AAAS IF/THEN® Ambassadors program created by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Lyda Hill Philanthropies to inspire new generations of women to pursue STEM fields.
PT: Why did you go into nuclear engineering?
HART: I was a business major at first. Then my mom said I should go into engineering. She knew it was a good-paying career path that involved math. I was really good at math and loved it. She gave me some incentives, including a car.
I graduated with a degree from Florida State University in industrial engineering. My interest in nuclear engineering was sparked when I went on a naval submarine. A submarine uses nuclear power for propulsion, and nuclear power is also used in weapons systems. I thought the duality of nuclear was really interesting. I wanted to be able to make sure that people use nuclear for peaceful purposes—little did I know there was a whole field that pertains to that.
At Urbana-Champaign, I studied nuclear engineering with a nonproliferation bent. For my master’s degree, I used computer modeling to look at how neutrons affect the isotopic composition of material surrounding the beam port in a nuclear reactor.
After finishing my degree, I quit graduate school to be a fashion model full time.
PT: Why fashion modeling?
HART: People talk about the burdens that people from underrepresented groups sometimes don’t want to bring up. One of my burdens was that I didn’t have any money. I was on a fellowship that paid $1200–$1500 a month. That was enough to live on during the school year. But I am from Miami, and I was living in Illinois. I didn’t have the money to fly home for Christmas or to buy a computer.
I got a part-time job waitressing. It sucked. I heard you could make an insane amount of money modeling. The day rate for a model was about what I made in a month as a graduate student. I went to an open casting call in Chicago. I ended up doing a lot of jobs for Claire’s—it sells trinket jewelry—and for Kohl’s. I’d get a day here, a day there.
In 2006 I went to South Africa to model. It was incredibly boring.
I went back to my professor at Urbana-Champaign and said, “Can I come back to school?” I had been halfway in and halfway out of engineering. After the modeling experience, I immersed myself. When I asked myself, “Would I rather be a 50-year-old engineer or a 50-year-old ex-model?,” I knew the answer.
PT: Describe your career path.
HART: My first job after my PhD was at Argonne. I was a nonproliferation and technical specialist, working to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials. I did a lot with export controls for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation.
I got to travel a lot to explain the US export controls and international standards, and I helped other countries set up their own export control systems. I went to Chile, Peru, Georgia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and more. The work tapped into things I was interested in: collaborative work and business. And it brought in my technical background.
PT: What came next?
HART: I got pulled into the national security side of things. I went to the Department of Energy, where I worked in the Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence focusing on the nuclear fuel cycle. I ended up supervising a group of laboratory scientists in writing topical papers and responding to questions from policymakers.
I was also an intelligence briefer to the secretary of energy. It was my job to prepare them for National Security Council meetings. That was exciting: It expanded my purview to include cybersecurity, oil and gas, and other topics. It helped me understand that energy security is national security.
PT: You are a member of the Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee, an independent body of experts that advises DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy. What’s an example of your work on the committee?
HART: I led a subcommittee that looked at consent-based siting of spent nuclear fuel. For now, most fuel is stored on reactor sites, but what are the long-term solutions? We have to start from the grass roots and talk to local communities near potential storage sites. In April 2023 our subcommittee advised that consent-based siting be an iterative process and that it requires adequate funding and stakeholder engagement and should be part of an integrated waste management strategy.
PT: What is a typical day for you like at Idaho National Laboratory?
HART: I am a full-time manager. I spend a lot of my time directing research and pointing scientists in the right direction. I attend a lot of meetings to stay on the pulse of work in nonproliferation and ahead of funding opportunity announcements. I read a lot of papers and attend conferences.
I also work to develop my people. That is a particular passion of mine. I feel if someone I help wins, I win.
PT: How do you help develop people?
HART: It’s informal and formal. Anybody who says hi to me too many times is going to be my buddy. I will check in with them. I focus on women and people from underrepresented groups. When I was in graduate school, I just wanted to blend in, so I suffered in silence. I didn’t ask questions. I don’t want people to do that. I go out of my way to make sure that I am speaking to people who are from outsider groups to make sure that they have an opportunity to address their concerns and feel they belong.
There are always informal connections, but some people get left out. They may not have somebody who looks like them or who went to the same school—those are natural connections. I’m trying to introduce more formal mentoring and development within my group.
PT: Tell us about your outreach and advocacy activities.
HART: One example is related to Survivor. After George Floyd was murdered in May 2020, I had an aha moment: I can challenge the norms of how African Americans and other underrepresented groups are treated on reality TV. I partnered with other former Survivor contestants to start a movement that resulted in changes by CBS as to how they handle contestants from underrepresented groups. For example, they are casting more people and hiring more people for behind the cameras that are BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and people of color]. I hope those changes will have ripple effects into the wider society.
In 2019 I was named an IF/THEN ambassador by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The IF/THEN initiative helped women scientists do outreach with other women about STEM opportunities and careers. As an ambassador, I received a grant that I used to create STEM Queens, a series of eight episodes on YouTube for tweens and teens.
On each episode, I interview a woman in STEM. She talks about how she got interested in STEM and about her career, and then she does a segment on what she likes to do outside of STEM. The premise is to show that if you are an engineer or scientist, that’s not all you are. Engineer is not a personality. Scientist is not a personality. You can be an engineer or a scientist and still do other things.
