Panel Moderators Alphabetical Order
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see Lecturers and Moderators in Panel Discussions
see Plenary Lecturers Keynote Lectures
Alphabetic order
see also in panel discussion session order
Cesare Frepoli (FPoliSolutions, USA)
Dr. Cesare Frepoli (PhD, 2001, Penn State; ME, 1990, Politecnico di Milano, Italy) is the founder and CEO of FPoliSolutions, LLC. The firm specializes in developing software solutions in the energy sector. Dr. Frepoli has 27 years’ experience in the nuclear industry. Areas of expertise include numerical modelling and simulation of fluid systems, thermal-hydraulic processes and data analysis for computer codes development and validation. Dr. Frepoli is the inventor and developer of important uncertainty analysis methodologies currently used in the industry (Westinghouse Electric Company ASTRUM and full Spectrum LOCA). Dr. Frepoli acquired a vast knowledge in legacy thermal-hydraulic test programs and participated in several key experimental campaigns in support to the licensing nuclear power plants.
Panel Discussion Session #C: Preservation of the most Critical Asset for BEPU, Experimental Data: Industry Efforts in Preserving and Managing Legacy Experimental Data
Dominique Bestion (CEA, France)
Dr. Dominique Bestion is Research Director at CEA, professor at Ecole Polytechnique and teaches at INSTN, ECP, ENSE3. He has been developing two-phase flow models for the CATHARE system code for more than 30 years and coordinated modelling activities of the NEPTUNE multi-scale thermal hydraulic platform. He coordinated thermal hydraulic activities of the NURESIM, NURISP and NURESAFE European Projects for a reactor multi-physics and multi-scale simulation platform. He coordinates a Working Group of OECD-NEA for the application of CFD to nuclear safety. He is editor at the Nuclear Engineering and Design review. He is NURETH Fellow.
Panel Discussion Session #F: Status and perspectives of CODES and EXPERIMENTATION in nuclear thermal-hydraulics following FONESYS and SILENCE networks
Francesco D'Auria (UNIPI, Italy)
Since 1980 he has been member in several international working groups at ANS, EC, IAEA and OECD/NEA including CSNI since 2015 and CSNI Senior Group of experts since 2017. He has been responsible for research projects valued more than 20 Million Euro in the period 2000-2015. He was member and Chair of Technical Program in several International Conferences and member of the scientific committee for a dozen Journals.Key awards and achievements are: a) Recipient of Technical Achievement Award (TAA) by American Nuclear Society in 2021. b) Enhancing and promoting the best use of computational tools in nuclear reactor safety including proposal of methods for validation, uncertainty,scaling and design of experiments, reliability of passive systems. c) Editor and key Author of the Elsevier Book “Thermal Hydraulics of Water Cooled Nuclear Reactors”. d) Coordinator-promoter-author of four State of Art Reports (SOAR) published by OECD/NEA: Two-Phase Critical Flow (TPCF) in 1980, Thermal-hydraulics of Emergency Core Cooling Systems (TECC) in 1987, Boiling Water Reactor Stability (BWRS) in 1996, Scaling (S-SOAR) in 2017 and Reliability of Passive Systems (2020). e) Member of NEA scientific groups since 1980 (PWG-2, W-GAMA, etc.).
Panel Discussion Session #G: Why BEPU is not widespread?
Jinzhao Zhang (TRACTEBEL, Belgium)
Dr. Jinzhao Zhang holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Louvain in Belgium (1993). As the Technical Director and Global Expert at Tractebel (an ENGIE subsidiary), he oversees nuclear fuel design, safety analysis, and licensing. With over 40 years of experience, Dr. Zhang's expertise spans nuclear reactor thermal hydraulics, fuel thermal mechanics, multi-physics modelling, safety analysis and licensing. Beyond his corporate role, Dr. Zhang chairs international working groups (including IAEA/TWG-FPT and OECD/NEA EGRFP), leads international projects, and contributes to safety guides, technical reports, and guidance documents for IAEA and OECD/NEA. He serves as a Guest Editor for the International Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Design and reviews papers for multiple international journals. Dr. Zhang is actively involved in organizing several international conferences in his fields of expertise, and has contributed or co-authored approximately 100 papers. Currently, his research focuses on the development, qualification, and licensing of BEPU methodologies, advanced technology fuels (ATFs), and SMR fuels.
Panel Discussion Session #I: Unleashing the Power of BEPU: A Global Dialogue on Broadening Industrial Applications
Kaiyue Zeng (NINE, Italy)
Dr. Kaiyue Zeng is a senior nuclear engineer and currently leading the reactor physics group at NINE. His research interests include multi-scale multi-physics simulation of light water reactor and fast reactor, sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of reactor simulation, and data assimilation using advanced numerical techniques. He received his Ph.D. and master degree in Nuclear Engineering from North Carolina State University in US, and bachelor degree in Nuclear Engineering and Technology in China. He got his master degree with the project of ‘Influence of Contact Angle on Interface Evolution Using Level-Set Method’ in 2016. In the project, he developed a local contact angle control algorithm for a direct numerical simulation code PHASTA. The interface was tracked by the code using level-set method. He got his Ph.D. degree with the thesis of ‘Uncertainty Analysis Framework for the Multi-Physics Light Water Reactor’, where he developed an uncertainty analysis methodology to consistently propagate correlated uncertainties from multi-physics domains, including uncertainties related to neutronics, thermal-hydraulics and fuel performance simulations. The methodology was developed and applied into the international benchmark ‘Uncertainty Analysis in Modelling of Light Water Reactor (LWR-UAM)’ activities. The input uncertainties in different physics domains are correlated with each other and propagated consistently through conventional two-step light water reactor simulations using SCALE, TRACE and PARCS. His fields of study in fast reactor include neutronics and system thermal-hydraulic simulations of sodium cooled fast reactors, and the associated sensitivity and uncertainty analysis using perturbation theory based and stochastic sampling based methodologies. The developed methodologies were applied into the international benchmark ‘Uncertainty Analysis in Modelling of Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR-UAM)’ activities. His expertise also includes reactor core design optimization using genetic algorithm, and the developed methodology was used to obtained optimized fuel enrichment in the Advanced Burner Test Reactor (ABTR). He joined NINE since December 2020 as a senior nuclear engineer, and his duties include developing adjoint sensitivity analysis methodology for reactor multi-physics simulation and data assimilation, as well as providing related consultant and training services to NINE’s customers.
Panel Discussion Session #H: Uncertainty Analysis for Multi-physics Applications
Kostadin Ivanov (NCSU, USA)
Professor Kostadin Ivanov has been working in the Nuclear field for over 34 years. His field of expertise includes: Reactor Physics; Methods in Static and Dynamic Analysis; Nuclear Power Plant Modeling and Safety; Fuel Management and Core Design; Verification and Validation of Multi-Physics simulations. He has worked over ten years for the Pennsylvania State University as Distinguished Professor including Graduate Coordinator of Nuclear Engineering Programme, and for two years as Visiting Professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, in Germany. Since 2015 he is Professor and Department Head of the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the North Carolina State University (USA). He was and currently is in charge as leading scientist of several international benchmarks organized under the umbrella of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). His work has been published on hundreds of academic and international journals and conference proceedings. He holds a PhD in Reactor Physics from the Bulgarian Academy of Science.
Panel Discussion Session #E: BEPU Using Open-Source Software for Sensitivity Analysis and Uncertainty Quantification
Lucia Sargentini (CEA, France)
Dr. Lucia Sargentini is a research-engineer at Commisariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Renouvables (CEA) in Saclay. She graduated in Nuclear Engineering at University of Pisa in 2011. She holds a PhD (2014) in Fluid Mechanics at Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC) in Paris on fluid-structure interaction for sodium-cooled reactor assemblies. Since 2015 she has working in CEA-Saclay. She has been involved in experimental analysis for physical modelling and validation of thermalhydraulic system codes and in the inverse uncertainties quantification in Best-Estimate Plus Uncertainty methodologies. She is one of the task leaders of the OECD/NEA ATRIUM project, which is dedicated to application of inverse uncertainty quantification in thermalhydraulics and it gathered 20 international institutions.
Panel Discussion Session #I: Unleashing the Power of BEPU: A Global Dialogue on Broadening Industrial Applications
Marco Cherubini (NINE, Italy)
Dr. Marco Cherubini is the Vice-President of NINE and current Head of the Core Behavior Area devoted to prediction and analysis of NPP core by different disciplines viewpoint. Prior to join NINE, he worked over 7 years in the Nuclear Research Group of San Piero a Grado (GRNSPG) being responsible for System Thermal-Hydraulics simulations. He got his PhD Degree in “Nuclear and Industrial Safety” Course of the “Leonardo da Vinci” Doctoral Engineering School in 2008, discussing a thesis dealing with Accident Management in VVER-1000. In the last three years Nuclear fuel behavior became his first priority topic of interest, continuing its involvement in thermal hydraulics activities. He is taking part at different International OECD-NEA and IAEA activities including code benchmarking, noticeably for the nuclear fuel.
Panel Discussion Session #D: Safety Assessment and Licensing in Italy: Competences, Capabilities and Developments
Martina Adorni (NEA, France)
Martina Adorni is a Nuclear Engineer, holding company at PhD in Nuclear and Industrial Safety from the University of Pisa. She acquired experience in nuclear safety, through the participation to national & international projects and working groups (OECD, EC, IAEA, USNRC, ETSON), while working at the NEA, Bel V (Belgian TSO) and University of Pisa as reported below:
Since 2020 she is Nuclear Safety Specialist at the NEA. She provides support to working groups involved in nuclear reactor safety and regulation and, specifically, in the groups dealing with accident analysis and management and safety research.
She was Safety Analyst at Bel V (Belgian TSO) since 2012. She was coordinator of the Bel V R & D. and she was involved in the evaluation of nuclear safety assessments on severe accidents in Belgian nuclear installations.
She started her research activities as student at University of Pisa at the San Piero a Grado Nuclear Research Group (GRNSPG) in 2003. From 2007 to 2012 she was involved in the preparation of the final safety analysis report for the fuel behavior-related activities for the Argentinean NPP Atucha-2.
In parallel, she had been safety advisor for the transport of dangerous goods by road for more than 10 years.
Panel Discussion Session #C: Preservation of the most Critical Asset for BEPU, Experimental Data: Industry Efforts in Preserving and Managing Legacy Experimental Data
Milorad Dzodzo (Westinghouse, USA)
Dr. Milorad B. Dzodzo is a fellow engineer in Engineering Analysis Group in Westinghouse, Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, USA. He obtained his Diploma in Engineering, M.Sc., and Ph.D. in 1977, 1983 and 1991, respectively from University of Belgrade, School of Mechanical Engineering, Serbia. Academic experience includes teaching and mentoring at three Universities: University of Belgrade, Serbia, 1979-1992, University of Akron, Ohio, USA, 1992-1996, and Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, USA - fall 2011. Industry research experience started at Westinghouse Science and Technology Center, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, in 1996 and extends over twenty two years. Research expertise and interests include analysis, numerical modeling and experimental testing in a variety of fields such as: Heat Transfer, Nuclear Engineering, Scaling Analysis, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Flow Visualization, Tribology, Turbomachinery, Thermodynamics, Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Solar Energy Conversion.
Panel Discussion Session #A: An Overview of ASME VVUQ Standard Committees and OECD NEA Activities
Timothy Valentine (ORNL, USA)
Dr. Timothy E. Valentine is the director of the Radiation Safety Information Computational Center (RSICC) As director of RSICC, he is responsible directing and expanding the services and operations of the center as well as being responsible for international collaborations with the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD-NEA) as well as Japanese Research Organization for Information Science and Technology (RIST). Dr. Valentine has twice served as a science and nuclear policy advisor in the U.S Senate on the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and for Senators Bingaman and Alexander. Dr. Valentine has held various line, program management and technical research positions with a focus on energy R&D and nuclear safety, security and nonproliferation.
Panel Discussion Session #B: Overview of the OECD-NEA Expert Group on Reactor Systems MUlit-Physics (EGMUP)
Tomasz Kozlowski (UIUC, Italy)
Dr. Tomasz Kozlowski is an Associate Professor of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he works since 2011. He received Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from Purdue University in 2005, where he worked on spatial homogenization methods for transport calculation and PARCS code development. He received Docent in Nuclear Power Safety at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden in 2011, where he worked on BWR stability, BWR safety and multi-physics coupling. His current research concentrates on reactor physics and thermal-hydraulics, multi-physics methods for reactor safety analysis, forward and inverse methods for uncertainty quantification.
Panel Discussion Session #H: Uncertainty Analysis for Multi-physics Applications