Mirela Gavrilas
Sr. VP Licensing & Regulatory Affairs
Elementl Power, Inc.
Mirela Gavrilas, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President, Licensing and Regulatory Affairs at Elementl Power, where she leads regulatory strategy for advanced nuclear development projects across federal, state, and local authorizing processes. Her work is technology-agnostic and includes construction permit and combined license application planning, environmental and site-permitting strategy, and engagement with regulators, permitting authorities, reactor vendors, engineering firms, and operators.
Before joining Elementl, Dr. Gavrilas served as Executive Director for Operations of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She previously served as Director of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response and held senior leadership roles in reactor regulation, engineering, risk assessment, policy, rulemaking, and regulatory research.
Across three decades in nuclear engineering and regulation, Dr. Gavrilas has worked on advanced reactor licensing, reactor safety, nuclear security, emergency preparedness, risk-informed regulation, thermal-hydraulics, severe accident research, materials degradation, and regulatory modernization. Her NRC leadership included work on the ADVANCE Act, advanced reactor licensing modernization, risk-informed decision-making, microreactor and fusion regulatory frameworks, emergency preparedness for advanced reactors, cybersecurity oversight, and licensing reviews for major nuclear technologies.
Dr. Gavrilas holds a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Maryland.
