Dr. Maria Avramova is an Associate Professor in the Nuclear Engineering Department of North Carolina State University (NE NCSU). She is the Director of the Consortium for Nuclear Power (CNP) and the Director of the Reactor Dynamics and Fuel Modeling Group (RDFMG) at NCSU. Dr. Avramova earned her Ph.D. degree in nuclear engineering from the Pennsylvania State University (PSU) in 2007. Prior to joining PSU in 2001, she held a research scientist position at the Institute of Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy, Bulgarian Academy of Science, Sofia, Bulgaria. After her graduation, Dr. Avramova has held positions at PSU of post-doctoral scholar, Assistant Professor, and Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering. She joined NE NCSU in 2015. Her background includes development, verification, and validation of thermal-hydraulics sub-channel, porous media, and CFD models and codes for reactor design, transient and safety computational analysis. Her latest research efforts have been focused on high-fidelity multi-physics simulations and on uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of reactor design and safety calculations. Dr. Avramova has led high visibility international projects such as the OECD-NEA/U.S. NRC BFBT benchmark, the OECD-NEA/U.S.NRC PSBT benchmark, and the OECD LWR UAM Benchmark. She has advised and graduated 12 PhD students, 19 MS students, and 38 MEng students. She has published more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals and proceedings of international conferences.

Course: Multi-Physics Multi-Scale Applications

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.

Courses: Thermal-hydraulics Experiments; Validation Process, Accuracy and Uncertainty Quantification

Domenico De Luca is an engineer at the Nuclear and Industrial Engineering (N.IN.E.) in plant thermal hydraulics area. He graduated from the University of Pisa with a degree in Industrial and Nuclear Safety Engineering in 2008. He got the Master degree in Nuclear and Industrial Safety Engineering at the University of Pisa in 2013, with a thesis related to the analysis of the thermal-hydraulic system response of a PWR during LOCA and core blockage scenarios. During his master degree (2010-2011), he was a research assistant at the Nuclear Research Group of San Piero a Grado (GRNSPG) led by Prof. F. D’Auria at University of Pisa. Then, he spent 8 months (2011-2012) in internship at the Nuclear Engineering Department of Texas A&M University as non-affiliated student technician II, under the supervision of Prof. Y. A. Hassan. In 2011 he started to work in N.IN.E. (since its foundation) in the field of system thermal hydraulics, focusing mainly in safety and licensing analyses of NPP. He is involved also in several international IAEA and OECD/NEA activities.

Courses: Thermal-hydraulics Experiments; Validation Process, Accuracy and Uncertainty Quantification

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.

Course: Scaling Analysis

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. 

Courses: Scaling Analysis; Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty

Dr. Walter Giannotti has PhD graduated in Nuclear Engineering at Pisa University. He is a senior nuclear engineering of the Nuclear and Industrial Engineering srl (NINE). He has more than twenty years of experience working in the system thermal-hydraulics safety analysis. He performed code applications for safety analysis o PWR, BWR, VVER and PHWR nuclear power plant related to thermal-hydraulic and severe accident analysis. He worked on Code Assessment (Relap, Cathare, Melcor, Smart) and Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty Methods (UMAE). From 1996 to 2012 he was a consultant of University of Pisa in the EU Tacis Project devoted to Deterministic safety analysis for VVER, RBMK and the preparation of the Chapter 15 of FSAR for the Argentinean NPP Atucha-2, SA analysis (Melcor, SCDAP, Gothic codes) of WWER (Temelin, Kozloduy), RBMK (Ignalina), PWR (Angra), PHWR (Atucha). He was senior expert in ”European Project for Technical Assistance for Implementing Nuclear Safety Project - Thermo-hydraulic experiments at the PSB-RBMK integral Test facility”. He performed, as tutor, courses concerning Nuclear Safety for VATESI-Lithuania (spent fuel), CNEN-Brasil (severe accident), CNPE-China (severe accident), ANRA-Armenia (safety analysis).  From 2013 is a consultant of IAEA for supporting the development of nuclear competences in severe accident. He is in the Task Group WGAMA - OECD for “Long-term management guide” and “Informing SAM guidance and actions”. In 2012 he worked as nuclear expert in the ”Final Design for the EUREX plant in Saluggia of the Waste Management Facility (WMF)”. He is qualified radioprotection expert (first level) and he is involved in radioprotection field (shielding and safety analysis) in nuclear and conventional environment.

Courses: Scaling Analysis; Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty

Dr. Horst Glaeser got his PhD in Process Engineering in 1976 from Technical University Berlin, Germany. Afterwards, he worked in the design and construction of chemical plants and nuclear reprocessing plants at UHDE GmbH in Dortmund, Germany. He joined the Gesellschaft fuer Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) in Garching close to Munich, Germany in 1980. Since 2002 he was Head of Cooling Systems Department at GRS up to his retirement in July 2014. He was lead manager of the development and application of the statistical GRS uncertainty analysis method. Now he is Senior Consultant in nuclear reactor safety analysis.

Course: Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty

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. 

Course: Multi-Physics Multi-Scale Applications

Dr. Robert Martin (Nuc Eng Phd 1996, Penn State; Nuc Eng BS ‘87, MS ‘89, Texas A&M) is a Technical Consultant at BWX Technologies leading the safety analysis methods team for the mPower™ small modular reactor program.  He has over twenty-five years of professional experience in the development and regulatory defense of nuclear-thermal-hydraulic evaluation methodologies for both design-basis coolant system faults and severe accidents.  The development of these methods has been through industry- and DOE-sponsored programs advancing conventional LWRs, the SRS production reactors, AP600, SBWR, PIUS, USEPR, VHTR (gas), mPower and the TWR-P (sodium) designs.  His experience includes employment at the Idaho National Laboratory  supporting development of the RELAP5-3D thermal-hydraulic systems computer code.  He is also a long-standing member of the American Nuclear Society (ANS), serving on executive committees for both the Thermal-Hydraulic Division and the Nuclear Installation and Safety Division. 

Courses: Thermal-hydraulics Experiments; Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty

Dr.  Rafael Mendizábal obtained his Master of Chemistry and his Master of Physics from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and his Master of Mathematics from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia. He obtained a PhD in Science from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. He works since 1986 at the Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear in Spain. His areas of expertise are: Deterministic Safety Analysis on Nuclear Power Plants, Thermohydraulic Modelling and Simulation, Nuclear Fuel design analysis, Uncertainty and Sensitivity analysis. 

Course: Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty

Dr. Nikolaus Muellner is Senior Scientist and Deputy Director of the Institute for Safety and Risk Sciences ISR of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences BOKU. He is chairman of the International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group, INRAG. His fields of research include nuclear safety, nuclear installation licensing, deterministic and probabilistic safety analysis, severe accidents, but also renewable energy issues and general modeling of thermo-hydraulic systems. After completing his studies in physics at the University of Vienna, he worked for ten years at the Pisa University of Technology, Nuclear Research Group San Piero a Grado, before moving to the ISR. In his role as coordinator of the Licensing, he was e.g. scientifically responsibility for the development of the chapter "Accident and Transient Analysis" of the safety report of the nuclear power plant Atucha 2. He is a founding member of the company "Nuclear and Industrial Engineering s.r.l." N.I.N.E.
N. Müllner is the representative of Austria in the "Nuclear Safety Standards Committee" of the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA 2013-2020 and adviser to the Austrian Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism, Nuclear Coordination. He is the author of numerous publications in journals, conference proceedings and specialist publications of the IAEA and OECD / NEA. 

Mr. Mike Modro has over 40 years of experience in research and engineering, including over 30 years in Nuclear Reactor Design, Licensing and Safety Research. His field of expertise includes: Analyses and Research related to Nuclear Power Plant behavior during accident conditions; Assessment and Validation of various Computer Codes used to simulate nuclear plant behavior; Development and conduct of Experimental programmes in support of nuclear safety needs; Programme and line Management, Business and Resource development. He worked over 25 years within the Idaho National Laboratory  (United States) and 6 years as Senior Safety Assessment Officer for the International Atomic Energy Agency (for whom he is currently a Senior Consultant). He is a Guest Lecturer for the Imperial College of London (UK). He has a background in Physics from the University of Bern (Switzerland) and the University of Warsaw (Poland).

Course: Multi-Physics Multi-Scale Applications

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.

Courses: Multi-Physics Multi-Scale Modeling and Simulation (M&S) and Applications

Dr. Alessandro Petruzzi is President of the Board of Directors of Nuclear and INdustrial Engineering (NINE) since 2011. He received Ph.D. in Nuclear and Industrial Safety from University of Pisa where he worked on development of Uncertainty Methods for system thermal-hydraulics codes and application of BEPU methodology to Safety Analysis in Licensing framework. From 2007 to 2013 he acted as deputy manager of GRNSPG (University of Pisa) working on the preparation of Chapter 15 of FSAR of Atucha-2 NPP in Argentina. His current research concentrates on thermal-hydraulics, multi-physics methods for reactor safety analysis, forward and inverse methods for uncertainty quantification and he is member of several NEA working group both at NSC and CSNI. In 2013 he was the main organizer of NURETH-15 in Pisa.

Courses: RELAP5-Beginner; RELAP5-Intermediate; RELAP5-Advanced