Tara Neider

Tara Neider is senior vice president and project director, Natrium™ demonstration reactor, at TerraPower. In this role, she leads TerraPower’s efforts to demonstrate the Natrium reactor as part of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. Her team is responsible for plant design, testing, licensing, design integration, procurement and project leadership and administration.

Neider has more than 30 years of experience in nuclear engineering, project management and licensing. Previously, she worked as senior vice president of Back End Business Development and Sales at AREVA, Inc. Neider had responsibility for directing back end customer relations for AREVA in North America, developing an overall fuel and decommissioning strategy for the company, and pushing sales revenues for AREVA and AREVA subsidiary Transnuclear, Inc. to double their sales targets.

For four years prior, Neider served as president and CEO of AREVA Federal Services where she established its overall strategy. In this role, she held board positions on major Department of Energy project teams, including the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility, Hanford Tank Operations, Savannah River Remediation and Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Neider’s many accomplishments include developing a new product line in support of AREVA’s Reactors, Services and Fuels group, and expanding the company’s mission to include sales to Canada and Saudi Arabia.

Neider spent much of her early career with Transnuclear, Inc. She began as a project manager and design engineer and rose to serve as president and CEO of the company. Over the years, she worked on dry transfer systems, dry fuel storage, transportation cask design, licensing, fabrication and installation projects, on both engineering and management levels. As president and CEO, she was responsible for leading the company’s overall strategy and investments, as well as day-to-day operations.

Neider holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also earned an MBA in finance and international business from New York University.