Dr. Krista Hawthorne is the Pyroprocess Engineering Section Manager in the Chemical and Fuel Cycle Technologies Division. As manager, she leads a team of researchers in the development and scale-up of high temperature electrochemical processes to facilitate uranium recovery for advanced reactor fuel. Dr. Hawthorne’s expertise is in electrochemical engineering and pyroprocess development. Her current research is focused on the development of the uranium dioxide electroreduction process in molten salt electrolyte, including development and demonstration of new anode materials, process optimization and scale-up, and the correlation of process variables with product quality.  

Dr. Hawthorne received her PhD in chemical engineering from Case Western Reserve University in 2014 and has over ten years of experience in the development of electrochemical processes and devices, the application of innovative electroanalytical techniques to understand complex chemistries, and the study of electrochemical reaction kinetics. Prior to joining the CFCT Division Dr. Hawthorne served as a postdoctoral researcher as part of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research at the University of Michigan and in the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division at Argonne. She also holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of New Mexico. Her research interests include the development of new electrode materials, development of industrial electrochemical processes, and ion complexation in molten salt environments.