We are pleased to announce that Dr. Jacy Conrad is the winner of the 2026 IAPWS Helmholtz Award, bestowed on an early career researcher in recognition of significant contributions in research of interest to the International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam. Dr. Conrad is a chemical scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory located in Idaho in the USA.
Dr. Conrad has made major contributions to the thermochemistry of heavy water, both cation ionization and hydrolysis, at conditions relevant to nuclear reactor cooling processes in pressurized heavy water reactors. Her research has also helped the community to better understand water radiolysis products, and contributed to the study of chemical processes in nuclear reactors and spent fuel reprocessing environments.
As part of the award, Dr. Conrad will deliver the Helmholtz Award Lecture at the 2026 IAPWS Annual Meeting to be held in Bristol, England 28 June to 3 July 2026. Her talk is titled Experiments and Multiscale Modeling of High-Temperature Water Radiolysis in Nuclear Reactor Environments.
