Erna Gevondyan is an energy systems risk analyst and project manager in the Energy Systems and Infrastructure Analysis Division at Argonne National Laboratory. She manages high impact research projects and leads a team of cross-functional scientists and engineers supporting offshore energy safety and sustainability. Gevondyan manages Argonne’s support to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). In this role, Gevondyan brings together the energy industry and regulators to gain consensus on best practices in process improvement, including the application of risk-informed decision making, the Argonne Success Path Analysis approach, and a cross application of recognized best practices from civilian nuclear and aviation industries, to support the sustainable development of energy and carbon sequestration resources on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. Gevondyan is the recipient of two Impact Argonne awards recognizing her contributions to advancing safety and sustainability in energy systems.

Gevondyan also serves as the project manager for National Nuclear Security Administration’s U.S. Nuclear Nexus, a resource for the U.S. industry to engage with NNSA on global deployment of U.S. civilian nuclear technology, promoting early engagement on international nuclear security, international nuclear safeguards, export control compliance, and proliferation resistance in nuclear systems. Gevondyan was in the FY2020 cohort Argonne’s Launchpad program participants--a merit-based competitive program that allows researchers to develop programs, enabling her to collaborate with other researchers in conceiving and developing U.S. Nuclear Nexus.

She has also served as the deputy project manager for U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Department of State sponsored assistance to Ukraine, leading scientific and engineering assistance projects with the goal of transferring U.S. best practices in safety and risk-informed decision making to Ukraine’s fleet of civilian nuclear reactors, generating over a half of the country’s energy.