Amir Afzali

As Southern Company's Licensing and Policy Director for Next Generation Reactors, Amir leads development and communication of strategic plans for establishing an effective and efficient pathway for development and deployment of advanced reactors in US. He works with federal agencies, research community, and industry stakeholders to drive enabling strategies for licensing and construction of new reactors. Amir's current activities include 1) supporting legislative agenda for enabling advanced reactor deployment, 2) acting as the technical lead for a couple of utility-led licensing modernization projects, 3) acting as the co-chair of the NEI Advanced Reactor Regulatory Taskforce, and 4) acting as the vice chair for the SMR Start organization. Additionally, Amir is a member of Technical Advisory Committee to the Japanese Nuclear Risk and Research Center (NRRC). In this role, Amir advises NRRC's on the use of risk-informed/performance-based decision making for continuous safety improvements.

Previous to his current role, Amir was the Risk-Informed Engineering Department Director at Southern Nuclear Operating Company. In this role, he was responsible for developing and managing portfolios of risk-informed applications. His responsibilities included identification of risk-informed programs, overseeing development of a business case and project plan for implementation of such programs, and ensuring these programs were supported by the state-of-the-practice models and processes.