Dr. Gary Was, one of the world’s foremost authorities on radiation effects and nuclear materials, joins Priyanca Ford to discuss how structural materials survive extreme radiation, heat, and particle flux inside reactors. Drawing on four decades at the University of Michigan and its Ion Beam Laboratory, he explains how ion-irradiation techniques stand in for reactor neutrons, why small modular reactors are reshaping fission economics, and why lowering neutron production makes the materials challenge far more tractable for fusion.