Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Allison Macfarlane will step down from her position at the end of this year for a position at George Washington University starting Jan. 1, the NRC announced yesterday. Macfarlane, who took over the chairmanship in 2012, followed a tumultuous period at the Commission marked by the disorder of former-chair Gregory Jaczko. Her term, which doesn’t expire until June 2018, saw the NRC complete a re-do of the court-mandated Waste Confidence rulemaking as well as the court-mandated re-start of the Yucca Mountain licensing review. “I came to the Commission with the mission of righting the ship after a tumultuous period for the Commission, and ensuring that the agency implemented lessons learned from the tragic accident at Fukushima Daiichi, so that the American people can be confident that such an accident will never take place here,” Macfarlane said in a statement. “With these key objectives accomplished, I am now returning to academia as Director of the Center for International Science and Technology Policy at George Washington University. At George Washington, I will continue to work on nuclear safety and security and for a better public dialogue on nuclear technology through my teaching and writing as well as by training a new generation of specialists in this area.”