Sarah N. Gibboney, P.E.
Nuclear Licensing Engineer
Phone:
720-235-4032
Email:
Address:
1500 N Grant St #8106
Denver, Colorado 80203
Date of Birth:
June 16th
A Bit About Sarah
Sarah Gibboney is a Professional Engineer in Nuclear Engineering licensed in Virginia and Washington with over 16 years' experience in the nuclear industry. Her experience includes working an outage at a nuclear power plant, Light Water Reactor (LWR) core design and analysis, materials and welding engineering at a nuclear construction site, commissioning and startup testing at a nuclear construction site, analysis and licensing for transportation of radioactive materials, non-LWR advanced reactor analysis, licensing, and NEI 18-04 (Licensing Modernization Project) implementation, and is the President and CEO of Gibboney Nuclear, PLLC. She has personally designed and/or licensed six (6) nuclear reactor designs and helped author two Construction Permit Applications (CPAs) for two advanced reactor designs.
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Sarah is from Kingsland, Georgia in Camden County, a rural area in southeast Georgia and home to the Kings Bay Naval Base. Her stepdad was a Navy veteran and federal civil servant and her mom was an elementary school math teacher; both are retired now. After scoring perfect on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), she decided that instead of military service, she would become a nuclear engineer.
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Sarah earned her Bachelor's of Science in Nuclear Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and her Master's in Engineering in Nuclear Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University.
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Sarah is disciplined, hard-working, adaptable, and inspiring through her journey from little means in rural Georgia to President and CEO of Gibboney Nuclear, PLLC today. She wants to help all advanced reactors become licensed and built, by approaching new technology with curiosity and, in turn, a teaching mentality to empower new entrants with the knowledge and confidence to navigate the U.S. regulatory structure.
Work Experience
February 2025 - Present
November 2023 - December 2024
March 2021 - November 2023
January 2017 - March 2021
January 2015 - December 2016
June 2009 - December 2014
August 2003 - May 2009
Sarah Gibboney, P.E. established Gibboney Nuclear, PLLC, an advanced nuclear consultancy specializing in licensing. Her vision is to help all advanced reactor designs by offering consulting services to assist in the development of license applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and/or U.S. Department of Energy.
In 2023, Sarah joined Bechtel, implementing the NEI 18-04 methodology within Bechtel to support TerraPower's Natrium advanced reactor design. She supported TerraPower in the preparation and submission of the Kemmerer Unit 1 Construction Permit Application (CPA) under 10 CFR 50 in March 2024. Sarah is one of the few, if not the only, licensing engineers to work on both ARDP (Advanced Reactor Demonstration Project) Awardees' CPAs.
In 2021, Sarah joined X-energy, an advanced reactor startup committed to designing, licensing and building the Xe Mobile and the Xe-100 non-LWR advanced reactors. She was the sole transportation licensing engineer developing the Regulatory Engagement Plan (REP) for the Xe Mobile, a mobile nuclear power plant developed under the DOD Project Pele. After that project finished, she became a nuclear licensing engineer for the Xe--100, developing pre-application engagement presentations, white papers, topical reports, technical reports, and Preliminary Safety Analysis Report (PSAR) Chapters in the areas of Core Design and Analysis Methodology, Reactor Physics Codes Verification and Validation (V&V), Ex-Core Criticality Analysis Methodology, Spent Fuel Management Methodology, Offsite Dose Calculation Manual, and Radiation Design Approach. For her efforts, Sarah won a Guiding Star award for organizing and facilitating execution for this immense scope of work.
Sarah joined the Orano side of AREVA in January 2017, assisting with the Hanford Evaporator Project and Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) contracts before fully embracing her role as a transportation and packaging engineer in July of 2017. She performed criticality and shielding analyses, licensing, and/or fabrication oversight for over a dozen radioactive material packages under 10 CFR 71 and IAEA SSR-6.
For her first two rotations with the Voyager Program, Sarah completed two years at the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility, which was under construction at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, South Carolina. Sarah expanded her skillset to include materials and welding engineering, including overhauling the materials control program onsite. She also worked in commissioning and startup testing of plutonium mixing tanks used in aqueous processing. After finishing her second year of Voyager, AREVA split into Framatome and Orano, and Sarah joined the Orano side as a transportation and packaging engineer. She completed her third and final year of Voyager and took her final placement as a transportation and packaging engineer.
Sarah worked for AREVA as a Reload Design and Analysis Engineer for the B&W-design LWR power plants in the U.S. licensed under 10 CFR 50. Sarah won an AREVA CORE Award for her part in an emergency redesign effort due to a dropped fuel assembly during an outage. While working full-time, she worked nights and weekends on her Master's of Engineering in Nuclear Engineering from Penn State, graduating in 2014. She also obtained her Professional Engineering License in Nuclear and was interviewed and selected for the AREVA Voyager Program, a three-year work rotational engineering program for high performing and high potential employees.
Sarah started her studies at Georgia Southern University and landed a co-op education work study with Southern Nuclear Operating Company at Plant Edwin I. Hatch at the age of 19. She transferred to the Georgia Institute of Technology, finished four semesters of work with Southern Nuclear, and completed an internship at the National Enrichment Facility in New Mexico. Sarah graduated with a Bachelor's in Nuclear and Radiological Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2009.
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