I am an anthropologist who studies how nuclear institutions reckon with deep time, build governance architectures, and sustain continuity into uncertain futures.

I am currently a Senior Researcher at Tampere University in Finland. From 2027 to 2030, I will join the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies as a Senior Research Fellow. In 2027, MIT Press will publish my second book, Longstorming: Beyond the Age of Haste.

During the Biden Administration, I served as a program manager in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, where I led the Consent-Based Siting Consortia: twelve project teams - drawn from academia, nonprofits, and the private sector - awarded $24m to advance public engagement and build community capacity for siting spent nuclear fuel facilities.

Before my federal service, I was MacArthur Assistant Research Professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. I have held fellowships at the University of Southern California, the University of British Columbia, and Cornell’s Society for the Humanities. I hold a PhD from Cornell University and an MSc from the London School of Economics.

My research explores long-horizon environmental security, energy policy, deep temporality, nuclear expert culture, and military-industrial accidents. My work has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, N Square Collaborative, and the Berggruen Institute.

I have published with MIT Press, American Ethnologist, Social Studies of Science, Physics Today, Nuclear Technology, Science & Technology Studies, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Nature Geoscience, and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

My work has been featured by the BBC, Scientific American, NPR, Science, Forbes, Atlas Obscura, Psyche, Public Radio International, ABC Radio Australia, and other outlets.

You can reach me at vincent.ialenti@tuni.fi