# Working to Automate Nuclear Plant Operations Lauren Fortier is developing new systems for remote control of nuclear plants. - **Source:** [MIT News — AI](https://news.mit.edu/topic/artificial-intelligence2) - **Published:** 2026-07-24 - **Topic:** [Business](https://brifing.si/c/business) - **Original article:** - **On Brifing:** https://brifing.si/s/4c518146-57b3-4a43-a0f2-4beba1c4a4b4 ## The Future of Nuclear Energy For nuclear energy to be recognized as a clean source, it needs to be cost-effective and economical. Lauren Fortier is conducting research on remote control of nuclear plants to achieve this goal. ## Inspiration from Experience Fortier supervised nuclear plant operations on a U.S. aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. This experience made her aware of the manual intensity of operations and led her to develop the idea of automation. ## Academic Journey Taking advantage of an opportunity offered by the Navy, Fortier pursued a master's in nuclear engineering at MIT, where she developed a supervisory control system for plant operations. ## Microreactors and Automation Microreactors deployed in rural areas cannot afford a large human workforce. Therefore, supervised and reliable automated operations are crucial. ## Human-Machine Collaboration Fortier is designing a system where humans and machines can work together. In this system, human intervention is only required when necessary. ## Collaborations at MIT Fortier collaborates with organizations like Idaho National Laboratory and Westinghouse to test automated operation solutions. She also receives support from control systems experts at MIT. ## Step-by-Step Automation Fortier emphasizes that the systems she designs will transition to automation gradually to build user trust. This approach will make operations more reliable. ## Sources covering this story - https://news.mit.edu/2026/working-automate-nuclear-plant-operations-lauren-fortier-0724 — --- _Summary written by Brifing from the original reporting. Copyright in the original article belongs to its publisher; read the full piece at the link above._