Philip Jensen joins Zap Energy as Vice President of Fuel Programs and Operations
Jensen brings 15 years of nuclear fuel leadership from First American Nuclear, AtkinsRéalis, GE, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to Zap Energy's mission of bringing nuclear energy to the grid.
Zap Energy is pleased to announce that Philip Jensen has joined Zap Energy as Vice President of Fuel Programs and Operations. He brings deep expertise in nuclear fuel design, testing, and manufacturing, and a track record of launching new fuel programs and partnerships.
Most recently, Jensen was Executive Vice President of Nuclear Fuels at First American Nuclear, overseeing the design and supply of fuel for the company's lead-bismuth-cooled fast reactor. He built and led its design team and launched new front-end and back-end fuel cycle projects to support advanced reactors.
Before that, he was Project Director for U.S. Nuclear at AtkinsRéalis, leading the firm's work as technical advisor to Energy Northwest, X-energy, and Amazon on their new reactor project in Richland, Washington. At GE's Global Nuclear Fuels, he led the team designing fuel for next-generation reactors.
At Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Jensen led multidisciplinary teams on a range of fuel cycle and advanced energy system projects. He was also part of the team that received the 2018 U.S. Secretary of Energy Achievement Award for a full-scale, 8,500-mile multimodal transportation demonstration.
Jensen has also held fuel analysis roles at Framatome, and began his career at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site. He earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Merced, and an M.S. in Nuclear Engineering from Oregon State University.