Meet Our Team

Dr. Kevin T. Clarno is an Associate Professor in the Nuclear and Radiation Engineering program at UT Austin. His research focuses on computational nuclear energy, especially algorithm development for radiation transport and reactor multiphysics.

Dr. Clarno spent 15 years at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and served as joint faculty at the University of Tennessee. He has led major high-performance computing initiatives, including SCALE modernization and the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL).

Current interests include:

• Multiphysics coupling for reactor simulation
• Multiscale modeling of neutronics and fuel performance
• Advanced reactor design and optimization
• Software integration for nuclear manufacturing
• Uncertainty quantification in simulations

Dr. William (Bill) Charlton is the John J. McKetta Energy Professor and Director of the Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory at UT Austin. He is an expert in nuclear nonproliferation, security, and deterrence, with over 20 years of experience in both academic leadership and national security research.

Before joining UT in 2018, Dr. Charlton served as Research Director of the National Strategic Research Institute (NSRI) at the University of Nebraska, a University Affiliated Research Center for U.S. Strategic Command. He also previously founded the Nuclear Security Science & Policy Institute at Texas A&M University and worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has taught widely in nuclear security, detection, and nonproliferation.

He earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M and holds TOP SECRET and SCI clearances. Dr. Charlton has published over 200 technical papers and received multiple awards for leadership in nuclear security education and research.

His research interests include:

• Nuclear nonproliferation and safeguards
• Nuclear security system design and analysis
• Radiation detection and nuclear forensics
• Combatting weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
• Science and policy integration for national security

Dr. Cole Gentry is a Senior Engineering Scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, where he focuses on nuclear reactor digital twins and machine-learning-based reduced order modeling. His work spans advanced reactor simulations, software development, and data-driven modeling techniques.

Before joining UT Austin, Dr. Gentry contributed to nuclear engineering efforts at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, BWX Technologies, and Zachry Nuclear. His past projects include:

• Developing and validating reactor analysis tools for HTGR designs at BWXT
• Enhancing LWR and advanced reactor simulation capabilities in VERA and POLARIS at ORNL
• Applying neural networks to improve reactor simulation performance

Dr. Gentry earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Tennessee, with research focused on FCM fuel and modeling of AHTR systems. He also served as a Reactor Engineer at the Sequoyah Nuclear Facility.

Nicholas Luciana, Ph.D, PE

Dr. Nicholas Luciano holds a PhD and MS in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Tennessee, as well as a BS in Physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He previously served as a Senior R&D Staff Member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he conducted research in reactor physics and nuclear nonproliferation, providing technical expertise to the National Nuclear Security Administration in the area of proliferation detection. He is currently a Senior Engineering Scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, where he leads efforts under the Digital Molten Salt Reactor Initiative, advancing the use of high-fidelity simulation tools to model molten salt and nuclear energy systems.

Dr. Ben Collins is a Senior Engineering Scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, where he leads efforts in nuclear reactor digital twins, advanced optimization, and multi-physics simulation. His research integrates reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and machine learning to enable predictive digital twins for both research and medical isotope production reactors.

Before joining UT Austin, Dr. Collins was a Senior Research and Development Staff Member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he served as lead developer of the MPACT reactor physics code and contributed broadly to the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL). He is also the founder and Chief Technology Officer of Veracity Nuclear, a company focused on advanced reactor simulation, crud modeling, and digital twin technologies. His past projects include:

• Developing high-fidelity core simulation tools within the VERA software suite (MPACT, CTF, MAMBA)
• Advancing crud risk modeling methods for light water reactors
• Creating optimization frameworks for reactor core design and operation
• Leading development of surrogate and reduced-order models to accelerate multi-physics simulations

Dr. Collins earned his B.S. and M.S. in Nuclear Engineering from Purdue University and his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Michigan, where his research centered on advanced reactor analysis methods and computational reactor physics.

Dr. Jeongwon Seo is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Nuclear and Radiation Engineering program at UT Austin. His research spans both traditional nuclear engineering topics and advanced data-driven methods, with a particular focus on applying machine learning and digital twin technologies to reactor systems.

He earned his M.S. in nuclear physics from Moscow in 2017 with a focus on micro-level radiation detection, followed by one year of hands-on experience in radiological monitoring in South Korea. From 2019 to 2023, he completed his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering at Purdue University, where he worked on model validation, uncertainty quantification, sensitivity analysis, and criticality safety.

His current research interests include:

• Model calibration for reactor simulations
• Integration of digital twin technologies
• Machine learning and neural networks for nuclear systems
• Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis in safety applications
• Improvement of traditional nuclear methodologies through data-driven tools

Sam Queralt is a recent graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics with high honors, minoring in Applied Statistical Modeling and Computer Science. His research focuses on reactor data restoration and analysis to support advanced modeling of the NETL TRIGA Reactor Digital Twin. He has also contributed to statistical modeling projects in sports analytics, presenting research at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference and publishing new evaluation methods for NFL performance data. Sam’s technical background spans R, Python, SQL, and data visualization, and his interdisciplinary experience connects nuclear engineering applications with data science innovation.