Bonita Chan, Oklo’s Director of Marketing & External Relations, interviews Liz Porter, a former Apple Mechanical Engineer who joined Oklo’s engineering team. At Oklo, Liz is responsible for creating mechanical models that assess the behavior and lifetime prediction of materials for a reactor design. Watch the full conversation here and read the abbreviated highlights below.
Liz, you recently joined the Oklo team. Can you tell us what drew you to Oklo?
Oklo’s work in providing clean energy to mitigate the impacts of pollution is what drew me to the company. To develop products that can provide clean energy is definitely something I can get behind, and I became excited about the potential to contribute to the work Oklo is doing. It is an exciting time at Oklo, as the company recently became the first advanced fission company to have its combined license application accepted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
You were working as a mechanical engineer at Apple before you joined Oklo. Can you tell us about your background?
I joined Apple right out of college as a mechanical engineer on the iPhone display team. My team was about 25 mechanical engineers, and we were split across various iPhone products.
The display encompasses all the parts that go into making the iPhone screen light up. Our team’s role was to own the mechanical design (shape, thickness, material, tolerance) of the display. We designed, incorporated cross-functional feedback, supervised the manufacturing, and we iterated.
The day-to-day could include meetings with cross-functional teams, meetings with vendors, 3D CAD, manufacturing statistical data review, failure analysis, brainstorming sessions, and design reviews with executives from across the company.
Coming from consumer tech, were people in your network familiar with advanced fission, or even the fission industry?
No, I was the only person I knew who was informed about the fission industry. Every person I talked to in my professional network, in particular my Apple colleagues and my peers from college, knew little to nothing about the fission industry. They all had a very similar perception of fission — slower, older, and lack-luster — which is likely based on grouping it with other regulated industries. This perception is very different from the perception of big-tech-companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook — speedy, cutting edge, and exciting.
Because of this difference in perception, most people viewed my transition from consumer electronics to fission as an enormous and somewhat confusing leap. The question people asked me was “Why would a young tech employee want to go work for a fission company?”
And how did you respond to that question?
I’ll start by saying that one of the cool things about working for Apple was getting the opportunity to contribute to a product that will ultimately be in the hands of millions of people. It’s an exciting feeling that I am sure drives many of the engineers there.
When I started to think about working for Oklo, I saw a similar draw — the opportunity to work on a technology and product that could really change the world. What’s more, not only would the impact be far-reaching and long-lasting, but also genuinely good. It’s the opportunity to make an impact on the world. And the cherry on top for me was that my contribution in a small (yet powerful) company would be huge.
What is getting you excited about your future at Oklo?
The people I get to work with! The Oklo team is passionate about fission, about our products, and especially about each other. It has been wonderful to have this type of care, passion, and harmony present in the culture. I think the tight-knit nature of the team will help us achieve great things.
I have also been really enjoying the technical aspects of the job. It has been exciting to dive into a completely new industry and to tackle mechanical engineering problems that are challenging, provoke creative thought, and require extensive research. I am learning so much, which is exactly the position that I want to be in as a young engineer. I really look forward to continuing to learn and chip away at these technical challenges with Oklo.
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