Arnold "Arnie" Gundersen (born January 4, 1949 in Elizabeth, New Jersey) is a former nuclear industry executive, and engineer with more than 44 years of nuclear industry experience who became a whistleblower in 1990. Gundersen has written dozens of expert reports for nongovernment organizations and the state of Vermont. His curriculum vitae shows Gundersen is a licensed Critical Facility Reactor Operator from 1971-1972.
Gundersen questioned the safety of the Westinghouse AP1000, a proposed third-generation nuclear reactor and has expressed concerns about the operation of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. He served as an expert witness in the investigation of the Three Mile Island accident and has provided commentary on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
Gundersen is a graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1971), with a B.S. cum laude and a GPA of 3.74 in nuclear engineering, holds a master's degree in nuclear engineering, and gained an Atomic Energy Commission Fellowship (1972). Gundersen has more than 40 years of nuclear power engineering experience. Gundersen holds a nuclear safety patent, was a licensed reactor operator, and is a former nuclear industry senior vice president. During his nuclear power industry career, Gundersen also managed and coordinated projects at 70 nuclear power plants in the US.
From 1972 to 1976 Gundersen worked at the Northeast Utilities Service Corporation as a nuclear engineer; and from 1976 to 1979 at New York State Electric & Gas as an engineering supervisor. From 1979 to 1990 Gundersen was employed at Nuclear Energy Services, a Danbury, Connecticut-based consulting firm. Gundersen served as an expert witness in the investigation of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. He co-authored the DOE Decommissioning Handbook, First Edition (1981–82).