Tech Transforms

Atoms, Algorithms, and Appetite: How AI Is Rewriting the Nuclear Playbook

AI’s ambitions depend on something less glamorous than the next breakthrough model: a reliable supply of electricity. As technology companies invest in nuclear power, what happens when Silicon Valley’s product cycles meet an industry built around decades of planning and a rigorous safety culture?

On this episode of Tech Transforms, Carolyn Ford welcomes Joyce Connery, owner of Connery Strategies, distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Nuclear Energy Policy Initiative, and former chair of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Joyce traces her career from nuclear nonproliferation work in Kazakhstan to the National Security Council and a decade overseeing safety at US defense nuclear facilities.

Carolyn also brings something personal to the conversation: nuclear power makes her nervous. Rather than dismissing that reaction, Joyce explores how fear, experience, transparency, and trust shape the public’s willingness to embrace nuclear energy.

Together, they discuss how AI demand is changing nuclear investment, the opportunities and challenges surrounding small modular and advanced reactors, and why cybersecurity must be treated as a safety function. Joyce explains why digital systems, physical operations, and security need shared ownership—and why innovation cannot come at the expense of the safety culture that supports them.

In this episode:

• How technology companies are changing nuclear financing, timelines, and priorities.

• Why public trust requires more than assurances that a technology is safe.

• Where small modular and advanced reactors fit into the energy conversation.

• Why cybersecurity, instrumentation, and nuclear safety must work together.

• How AI could support reactor modeling and operations while preserving human oversight.

• Why leaders should measure progress by electricity delivered, rather than designs announced.

Plus, Joyce weighs in on fictional power sources and the enduring absurdity of surviving a nuclear blast inside a refrigerator.

Show Notes:

Guest Email: Joyce@connerystrategies.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joyce-connery-770199/

Relevant Links and Resources:

Atlantic Council profile: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/expert/joyce-connery/

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board: https://www.dnfsb.gov

Harvard Belfer Center seminar with Joyce Connery: https://www.belfercenter.org/event/perspectives-role-and-challenges-safety-oversight-defense-nuclear-facilities

We spend plenty of time updating our technology. How much attention do we give the bodies operating it?

In this Halloween episode of Tech Transforms, Carolyn Ford goes off-script with her longtime physical therapist, Ned Dowling, director of the Cyclist Clinic at University of Utah Health. Together, they explore the remarkable machine that makes everything else possible: the human body.

Ned explains his approach to balancing the demands placed on the body with its capacity to handle them and why sitting through back-to-back meetings or pushing every workout to the limit can upset that balance. Drawing on Carolyn’s own experiences with cycling injuries and rehabilitation, they discuss workplace ergonomics, why recovery rarely follows a predictable schedule, and how wearable technology can help put training and recovery into perspective.

Along the way, they consider why standing desks still require movement, how small “exercise snacks” fit into a busy day, and what zombies are missing beyond decent posture.

In this episode:

• Why changing positions matters more than finding one perfect posture.

• How physical therapy builds the body’s capacity to handle everyday demands.

• Why recovery involves more than waiting for an injury to heal.

• Where heart rate and heart rate variability fit into understanding effort and stress.

• Why rest deserves a place alongside strength training and movement.

Ned’s parting advice is simple: change positions frequently. Preferably before you start moving like the walking dead.

Episode Notes:

Provider Profile: healthcare.utah.edu/find-a-doctor/nathan-dowling

Podcast - The Health Benefits of Cycling: healthcare.utah.edu/the-scope/.../health-benefits-of-cycling

Podcast - First Gear: A Physical Therapist's Advice on Getting Started with Cycling: healthcare.utah.edu/the-scope/.../first-gear...

Buying a cross-domain solution doesn’t guarantee your mission’s data will get where it needs to go. The harder work is understanding the architecture, risks, stakeholders and approvals that make secure information sharing possible.

In this episode of Tech Transforms, Carolyn Ford talks with John Spicer, VP of Technical Strategy and Co-founder at Nteligen, about why government programs need to approach cross-domain requirements as a mission planning challenge. John shares how overlooked architectural requirements can leave seven figures’ worth of hardware sitting unused—and why an existing, approved solution may sometimes meet a mission’s needs without a new purchase.

They also explore how cross-domain solutions complement zero trust, why cloud elasticity creates challenges for traditional cross-domain architectures, and the distinction between mitigating threats and making informed risk decisions. John explains why Raise the Bar (RTB) guidance supports secure system design but does not replace a mission-specific assessment of acceptable risk.

His advice for leaders: start with the data your mission needs to move, bring the right stakeholders into the conversation early, and build secure information sharing into your roadmap before acquisition begins.

Show Notes

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-spicer-9993191/

Nteligen Website & Published Research: https://www.nteligen.com

National Cybersecurity Strategy (2023): https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/National-Cybersecurity-Strategy-2023.pdf

DoD Cyber Strategy Summary (2023): https://media.defense.gov/2023/Sep/12/2003299076/-1/-1/1/2023\_DOD\_Cyber\_Strategy\_Summary.PDF

Enterprise Security Magazine Top 10 Recognition: https://www.prweb.com/releases/nteligen\_named\_a\_top\_vulnerability\_management\_solution\_provider\_by\_enterprise\_security\_magazine/prweb15525982.htm

When Sean Rugge set out to turn a lengthy Marine Corps mountain warfare manual into an interactive online course, he wanted to find out what AI could genuinely contribute to course development. The result was a proof of concept that combined AI-generated course structure, learning activities and media with an agentic browser that handled some of the repetitive work inside the learning management system.

In this episode of Tech Transforms, Sean, a senior educational technologist at Marine Corps University, walks Carolyn Ford through the course and the decisions behind it. He explains how AI helped organize source material and build a branching scenario—and how his own review caught an omitted chapter and unreliable claims about time savings. A Marine subject matter expert provided another essential check on the training content.

Carolyn and Sean also discuss a harder question: if an AI agent can take a course for a student, what should the course ask students to do? Sean makes the case for assignments that require learners to direct, assess and improve AI-generated work. It is a practical look at what AI can speed up, what educators still need to verify, and how training can develop critical thinking alongside AI skills.

Show Notes:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-rugge-1ba47a171/

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.

Sean’s github repo with 2 of the prompts I use for analysis: The session analyzer and the discussion analyzer. https://github.com/seanrugg/local_lid/tree/main/prompts

Organizations are investing heavily in artificial intelligence, but technology alone cannot deliver transformation. When employees feel anxious, exhausted, or uncertain about how AI will affect their jobs, even the most advanced tools can go unused—or be actively resisted.

In this episode of Tech Transforms, Carolyn Ford speaks with Arika Pierce Williams, CEO of Piercing Strategies, about why successful AI adoption depends on the human infrastructure surrounding the technology. Arika explains that organizations often focus on teaching employees how to use AI without preparing leaders to address the fear, uncertainty, and change fatigue that can prevent meaningful adoption.

Arika introduces three gaps that leaders must address: the knowledge gap, when leaders do not fully understand what AI transformation requires; the importance gap, when they understand the strategy but cannot connect it to their teams’ priorities; and the action gap, when leaders care but do not know what to do differently.

She also shares Piercing Strategies’ HUMAN-First framework: Hear, Understand, Motivate, Amplify, and Navigate. These familiar but often neglected leadership capabilities help create the trust, clarity, and psychological safety employees need to experiment with AI and understand how it can support their work and career development.

Carolyn shares lessons from taking her own team through Arika’s Trust Lab, including the value of stepping away from technology to reconnect as people. One simple practice—beginning weekly meetings by recognizing individual and team wins—helped strengthen an already close team and made amplification an intentional part of its culture.

The conversation also examines why younger employees may be more hesitant to embrace AI than leaders expect, how constant organizational change contributes to employee resistance, and why managers must be able to explain not only how AI should be used but why it matters. Arika makes the case that human-first and AI-first are not competing approaches. The organizations that succeed will be those whose leaders can combine technological fluency with trust, curiosity, communication, and genuine human connection.

Ultimately, AI transformation is not simply a technology initiative. It is a leadership challenge—and human connection may be one of an organization’s most valuable competitive capabilities.

Show Notes

Guest Email: Arika Pierce Williams arika@piercingstrategies.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arikapierce/

Piercing Strategies Website: https://piercingstrategies.com/

Book recommendations:

Start With Yourself: A New Vision for Work & Life, Emma Grede

The Thin Book of Trust, Third Edition: An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work by Charles Feltman