Jonathan Barr

Jonathan Barr is an accomplished engineer and leader in the field of nuclear power safety, regulation, and research. He is a dedicated public servant with over 17 years of experience regulating the safe use of commercial nuclear power at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

In his role as a White House Leadership Development Program Fellow, Mr. Barr joins the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy where he is working to enable and accelerate the deployment of clean energy technologies to help achieve U.S. climate and economic goals.

Throughout his NRC career, Mr. Barr has combined rigorous quantitative analysis with the leadership and communication skills necessary to drive safety and efficiency improvements. He has led high-visibility projects that successfully addressed some of the most critical decisions facing the agency and impacting the nuclear power and electric utilities industries. These include projects to analyze the safety of U.S. nuclear power plants given heightened concerns from the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan. His efforts were instrumental in providing the technical basis for many important decisions, including whether to require additional safety equipment and procedures at nuclear power plants.

Mr. Barr has held many positions at the NRC of increasing responsibility, including engineer, program manager, executive technical assistant, and supervisor. In these roles, he has gained a great appreciation for the importance of building partnerships with external stakeholders to solving important challenges of the future including with industry, members of the public, governmental organizations, and international counterparts.

Mr. Barr holds a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in materials science and engineering. He also holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Maryland where he focused on energy economics, finance, and strategy.

In his free time, Mr. Barr enjoys playing softball every weekend March through November and coaching his sons’ baseball teams.

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