Aaron Bame
Graduate Student Fellow
Aaron Bame is a Nuclear Engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin and an R&D Engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), specializing in heat transfer, nuclear energy systems, and reduced-order modeling. His doctoral research centers on developing high-fidelity reduced-order models and digital twins to optimize complex manufacturing processes. Concurrently, in his role at LANL, he focuses on the applied engineering analysis of complex manufacturing and thermal cooling systems, utilizing core expertise in thermal-hydraulics and reduced order modeling. Prior to joining UT Austin, Aaron worked as a Mechanical Engineer in the US Air Force Sentinel program office and earned both his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Brigham Young University, where his graduate research focused on Concentrated Solar Power-Coal hybrid optimization and the development of simplified power plant models. Through his work, Aaron aspires to contribute to the global deployment of reliable nuclear energy systems.
Max Cohen-Hoffing
Graduate Research Assistant
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Andrew Fierro Lopez
Graduate Student Fellow
Andrés Fierro is a Computational Nuclear Engineering Ph.D. student at The University of Texas at Austin and a DOE University Nuclear Leadership Program Fellow. He is committed to the dual challenge of increasing clean energy while reducing emissions. His research focuses on reduced-order modeling, digital-twin development for molten-salt natural-circulation systems, machine learning/artificial intelligence, and nuclear-engineering thermal hydraulics. He has also conducted nuclear engineering research at Idaho National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory.
Sree Gudala
Graduate Research Assistant
Sree grew up in the Houston area and attended The University of Texas at Austin where he completed his undergraduate degree in physics with a focus on nuclear engineering. He started the CSEM program in the Oden Institute in Fall 2023. His current research interests lie in the simulation and modeling of advanced nuclear reactors.
Mina Kimble
Graduate Research Assistant
Mina Kimble graduated with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin in May 2026 and is now pursuing a Masters in Nuclear and Radiation Engineering. Having started as an undergraduate research assistant, she is now working as a graduate research assistant under the guidance of Dr. Shayan Shahbazi on the LONESTAR irradiated molten salt loop project. Her research interests include understanding and computationally modeling the behavior of soluble fission products, bubbles, and aerosols in molten salt reactors.
Wesley Lao
Graduate Research Assistant
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Tatiana Leggiero
Graduate Research Assistant
Tatiana Leggiero is a Ph.D. student in Nuclear Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and a Graduate Research Assistant in the Computational Nuclear Engineering group. She earned a B.S. in Mathematics from The College of Saint Rose and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas Permian Basin, while also completing engineering coursework at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her current research focuses on computational reactor physics, high-fidelity neutronics modeling, and the development of digital twins for nuclear reactor systems, including computational modeling of the UT Austin NETL TRIGA reactor. Prior to beginning her graduate studies, Tatiana was also a collegiate soccer athlete during her undergraduate education.
Alex Macris
Graduate Research Assistant
Alex Macris graduated from UT Austin in 2021 with a B.S. in Radiation Physics. During undergraduate, he did research in neutron detection and simulation for two years. He joined the computational nuclear energy group in Fall 2023 to pursue an M.S. in nuclear engineering. He is interested in research on noble gas fission products and off-gas simulation.
Caleb Miller
Graduate Research Assistant
Caleb is a first year Ph.D. student in the mechanical engineering department at the University of Texas at Austin studying computational modeling and design of nuclear reactors. He is currently a part of a team developing multiphysics simulation software led by Ben Collins.
He received a B.S. in Physics from the University of Texas at Austin in December 2022.
Braden Pecora
Graduate Research Assistant
Harrison Reisinger
Graduate Research Assistant
Harrison Reisinger is an associate engineering scientist at the University of Texas at Austin working on the Molten Salt Research Reactor project. He is passionate about energy production from molten salt reactors, and hopes to see the technology brought to commercial markets. His main skill in the field is the simulation of molten salt systems using a combined effort of Python scripts and neutronic codes. Harrison grew up in Annapolis Maryland and received his Bachelors of Science in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His current goal is to attend the University of Texas at Austin for graduate school and achieve his PhD while developing a neutronic sensitivity code base for the licensing of advance reactors.
Reno Raksi
Graduate Research Assistant
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Ethan Rozak
Graduate Research Assistant
Ethan is an Engineering Scientist Associate working on the Digital Molten Salt Reactor Initiative at the University of Texas at Austin.
He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Arlington. His current research is in the creation of a digital twin for Texas A&M’s Bubble Flow Loop Project. Ethan is also a member of the United States Marine Corps Reserve serving as a Corporal out of Fort Worth’s Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base.
Trevor Van Husen
Graduate Research Assistant
Trevor is a Sophomore, Mechanical Engineering major. He is a member of the team working with MIT to model and irradiated salt loop.
Priyansh Vora
Graduate Research Assistant
Priyansh Vora is undertaking a Master’s in Nuclear and Radiation Engineering after graduating with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering at UT Austin. He began his research career as an RESA mentored by Dr. Shayan Shahbazi, developing a computational model of fission product chemistry and transport. Continuing this trajectory, he is now a graduate research assistant in Dr. Kevin Clarno’s group, working under Dr. Shahbazi on the LONESTAR irradiated molten salt loop project. His research interests involve investigating and modeling insoluble fission product behavior and understanding their transport pathways in molten salt systems. This includes solid-liquid interface corrosion, gas-liquid interface deposition, and nanoparticle aggregation.