Dr. Kevin T. Clarno
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Dr. Kevin T. Clarno

Kevin Clarno, Mechanical Engineering Professor in the Nuclear and Radiation Engineering Program and Core Faculty member of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin leads a team of researchers focus on computational nuclear energy modeling and simulation for light-water and advanced nuclear reactors

Research Team

The team is currently composed of

  • 4 Research Staff
    • 2 are full time (Chvala, Reisinger) and one part time (Collins)
    • 1 is located in Austin (Reisinger) and two in Knoxville, TN (Collins, Chvala)
  • 8 Graduate Students
    • 6 are PhD students (Brennan, Ross, Cohen, Villareal, Havrilak, Wray) with 2 MS (Mellinger, Kelley)
    • 4 are full time students (Brennan, Ross, Villareal, Mellinger)
    • 4 have full-time research jobs (Cohen, Havrilak, Wray, Kelley)
    • 5 currently live (Ross, Villareal, Mellinger) or previously lived (Wray, Brennan) in Austin
    • 5 have degrees from outside UT and 4 have a previous degree from UT (BS or MS)
  • 4 Undergraduate Students
    • 2 are underclassmen who have worked with me since their freshman year (Barlow, Luna)
    • 2 are seniors preparing to start graduate school in the fall (Skoutnev, Fowler)

With 8 graduates (all MS) with a 100% job placement prior to their graduation.

Research Staff

(order: senior to junior: ben, Ondrej, Cole, nick, soha, erik, charlie)

  • 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 the MPACT code, Physics Integration lead in CASL, Multiphysics Modeling lead for NEAMS, lead for VERA development, including the MSR version, and lead of the Reactor Multiphysics Group
    • LinkedIn
  • Dr. Ondrej Chvala, Senior Research Fellow
    • Design and licensing of the MSRR
    • Nuclear Physics degrees from Charles University (Czech Republic)
    • LinkedIn
  • Nick Luciano, Senior Research Fellow

Post-Doctoral Researchers

  • Jay
  • John Ross (PhD 2021-present)
    • UTexas 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)
    • LinkedIn
  • Sun

Graduate Students

  • Full-Time (order by time started):
    • Tristan, (with MS: Seth, Alex, Erik, Tatiana), (Sree, Ethan, Caleb, Braden P, Braden C, Harrison, Andres)
  • Part-Time:
    • Colin Brennan, Charles Cohen, Jocelynn Kelley, Dylan Wray,
  • 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
    • LinkedIn
  • 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
    • LinkedIn
  • Jocelynn Kelley (MS 2021~2024)
    • Thesis – TBD
    • Full-time researcher at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Schenectady, NY
    • Penn State Nuclear Engineering BS
    • LinkedIn
  • 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
    • LinkedIn
  • 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)
    • LinkedIn
  • Harrison Reisinger, Engineering Research Associate
    • Design and licensing of the MSRR
    • University of Tennessee-Knoxville, BS
    • LinkedIn

Undergraduate Students

  • whole bunch, no particular order

Graduates

  • Alex Macris (MS 2024)
  • John Ross (PhD 2024)
  • Seth Dayawansa (MS 2024)
  • Dylan Wray (MS 2022)
    • Graduated with an MS in the spring of 2022
    • Thesis: “Analysis of PCI Failure Risk and Modelling Hoop Stress during Load Following Maneuvers in Pressurized Water Reactors”
    • Employed with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, WA
    • LinkedIn
  • Joseph Perrotto (MS 2021)
    • Graduated with an MS in the fall of 2021
    • Thesis: “Calculation of the Effectiveness of Non-Hydrogenous Constituents in Hydrogenous Moderators”
    • Employed with the Naval Nuclear Power Laboratory (KAPL) in Schenectady, NY
  • Mark Armijo (MS 2021)
    • Graduated with an MS in the summer of 2021
    • Thesis: “Research on the Structural Integrity of a Uranium-Boron-Cadmium Converter”
    • Employed with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in Los Alamos, NM
  • Upayan Mathkari (MS 2021)
    • Graduated with a Joint BS/MS in Mechanical Engineering in the spring of 2021
    • Thesis: “Prototyping a Digital Twin: Using Novel Machine Learning and Simulation to Forecast Accident Response in a Molten Salt Reactor”
    • Employed with General Motors (GM) in Austin, TX
    • LinkedIn
  • Cade Bourque (MS 2020)
    • Graduated with an MS in the fall of 2020
    • Thesis: “Production Through Simulation: Using Simulation Technologies to Create and Evaluate Nuclear Fuel Fabrication Facility Designs”
    • Employed with Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, NM
    • LinkedIn
  • Praneel Gulabrao (MS 2020)
    • Graduated with an MS in the spring of 2020
    • Thesis: “Development of radiation buildup factors on Mars using MCNP”
    • Employed with the US Navy
    • LinkedIn
  • William Gurecky (PhD 2019)
    • Co-Advised by Dr. Clarno while he was at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
    • Dissertation: “A CFD-Informed Model for Subchannel Resolution CRUD Prediction”
    • Employed with Oak Ridge National Laboratory
    • LinkedIn

Former Students and Researchers

  • Dr. Terry Price (2021-2022)
  • Dr. Hüseyin Atila Ozgener (2020-2022)
  • John (Jack) Barlow (2019-2023)
  • Kyle Luna (2021-2022)
  • Loc Duong (2022-2023)
  • William (Kason) Stringfellow (2022)
  • Ayan Barua (2022)
  • Micah Best (2022)
  • John Mellinger (2022)
  • Alexy Skoutnev (2021-2022)
  • Ethan Fowler (2022)
    • Undergraduate Research Assistant
  • Hannah Erington (2020-2021)
    • Undergraduate Research Assistant
    • LinkedIn
  • Tucker Saywer (2019-2021)
    • Undergraduate Research Assistant
    • LinkedIn
  • Kyzer Gerez (2020-2021)
  • Jon Walsh (2020)
  • Elena Koung (2019-2020)
    • Undergraduate Research Assistant
    • LinkedIn

 

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