Research Staff
- Dr. Ben Collins, Senior Research Fellow
- Advanced modeling and simulation for molten salt reactors (MSRs)
- Nuclear Engineering degrees from Michigan (PhD) and Purdue (BS)
- 10 years experience at ORNL: founder of MPACT code, Physics Integration lead in CASL, Multi-physics Modeling lead for NEAMS, lead for VERA development, including the MSR version, and lead of the Reactor Multi-physics Group
- Dr. Ondrej Chvala, Senior Research Fellow
- Design and licensing of the MSRR
- Nuclear Physics degrees from Charles University (Czech Republic)
- Cole Gentry, Senior Research Fellow
- Nick Luciano, Senior Research Fellow
Post-Doctoral Researchers
- Jeongwon Seo, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
- Nuclear Engineering degree from Purdue (PhD) Masters degree in Nuclear Physics from Moscow State University
- John Ross, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
- Nuclear Engineering degree from UT Austin (PhD)
- “A Digital Twin of the UT-Austin TRIGA Nuclear Reactor”
- UT Radiation Physics BS (2016-2019)
- Internship with INL (2021) and Kairos Power (2022)
- Sun Myung Park, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
- Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering (PhD) and Masters degree in Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Graduate Students
- Colin Brennan (MS 2019~present)
- Exploring the use of Proper Orthogonal Decomposition and Proper Generalized Discretization for the acceleration of high-fidelity, coupled-physics nuclear reactor analyses.
- UT Physics undergraduate who has interned with LANL (2019, 2020), ANL (2021), and INL (2022)
- Awarded a 1 year UT Cockrell School of Engineering Fellowship and 4 year DOE Office of Nuclear Energy NEUP Fellowship
- Charles Cohen (PhD 2018~present)
- Machine Learning to Identify Accidents in an LWR
- Full-time researcher at Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in Pittsburg, PA
- Florida Nuclear Engineering BS; Penn State Nuclear Engineering MS
- Tristan Villareal (PhD 2021~present)
- Thesis: integration of machine learning and high-fidelity modeling for the MSRR
- Virginia Commonwealth Mechanical/Nuclear BS (2021)
- Internship with NRC (2022)
- Awarded a 1 year UT Cockrell School of Engineering Fellowship
- Cody Havrilak (PhD 2021~present)
- Thesis – something related to fuel modeling
- Full-time researcher at ORNL on assignment as a Technical Advisor to the DOE
- UT-Knoxville MSE MS; Washington State MSE and CE BS
- Jocelynn Kelley (MS 2021~2024)
- Thesis – TBD
- Full-time researcher at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Schenectady, NY
- Penn State Nuclear Engineering BS
- Dylan Wray (PhD 2022~2026)
- Thesis – TBD, but likely something related to fuel performance and VERA methods
- Arizona State ME BS; UT nuclear MS; Full-time researcher at PNNL
- Caleb Miller (PhD 2023-present)
- Digital Twins
- UT Radiation Physics BS
- Andres Fierro
- Digital Twins
- Radiation Physics (May 2024), GEM Fellow with Idaho National Laboratory (2024-2028)
- Harrison Reisinger, Engineering Research Associate
- Design and licensing of the MSRR
- University of Tennessee-Knoxville, BS
- Tatiana Leggiero
- University of Texas BA in Mathematics, BS in Mechanical Engineering
Undergraduate Students