Aditi Verma

Aditi Verma (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at the University of Michigan. Aditi is broadly interested in how fission and fusion technologies, specifically, and energy systems broadly — and their institutional infrastructures — can be designed in more creative, participatory, and equitable ways. To this end, her research group at the University of Michigan works towards developing a more fundamental understanding of the early stages of the design process to improve design practice and pedagogy, and also improve the tools with which designers of complex sociotechnical systems work.

She was previously a Stanton Nuclear Security PostdoctoralFellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Prior to her appointment at the Belfer Center, Aditi worked at the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, her work, endorsed and funded by policymakers from the NEA member countries, focused on bringing epistemologies from the humanities and social sciences to academic and practitioner nuclear engineering, thus broadening their epistemic core. At the NEA, Aditi also led the establishment of the Global Forum on Nuclear Education, Science, Technology, and Policy.

Aditi holds undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Nuclear Science and Engineering from MIT. Her work, authored for academic as well as policymaking audiences, has been published in Nuclear Engineering and Design, Nature, Nuclear Technology, Design Studies, Journal of Mechanical Design, Issues in Science and Technology, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and Inkstick.

Aditi enjoys hiking with her dog, reading speculative fiction, and experimenting in the kitchen.