Kathryn Huff will leave the Department of Energy on May 3, only days before what would have concluded her third year at the top of the Office of Nuclear Energy.
Huff shared the news in an email, which the Exchange Monitor saw on Monday. Her departure was first reported by Politico. Mike Goff, Huff’s deputy, will become acting assistant secretary after Huff leaves, Huff said.
“I chose this timing to enable the smoothest transition back to my professorship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where my beloved research, students, husband, and dog await,” Huff wrote in her farewell email.
Another researcher at the university, Madicken Munk, who took over much of Huff’s work during the latter’s time at DOE, is leaving “Illinois this fall for exciting new horizons.”
Huff was confirmed by the Senate to be assistant secretary of energy May 5, 2022. She had strong bipartisan support in the chamber, though her nomination drew some objections, including from the right of the aisle.
Huff joined the Office of Nuclear Energy in May 2021, running it on an acting basis until her confirmation about a year later.
In her email, Huff included “restarting a consent-based approach to spent nuclear fuel management” on a list of things that contributed to “tangible progress the U.S. has made in nuclear energy” during her time at DOE.
