Alireza  Haghighat Author of Evaluating Organization Development
FEATURED AUTHOR

Alireza Haghighat

Professor and Director
Virginia Tech/Nuclear Science and Engineering Lab

Prof. Haghighat is director of the Virginia Tech Theory Transport Group (VT3G). Since 1986, he and his students have been engaged in the development of new particle transport computational methodologies and large computer codes for modeling and simulation of nuclear systems including reactors, nuclear security and safeguards systems and medical devices. Prof. Haghighat has served as Chair of Reactor Physics and Mathematics and Computation Divisions of the American Nuclear Society.

Biography

In Jan 2011, Prof. Haghighat joined the Nuclear Engineering Program in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Virginia Tech (VT).  He is the director of the Nuclear Science and Engineering Lab (NSEL) at the Virginia Tech Research Center (VTRC) at Arlington. Prior to that, Prof. Haghighat was a Florida Power & Light Endowed Term Professor at the Nuclear & Radiological Engineering (NRE) Department, University of Florida. Between July 2001 and Sept 2009, he served as Chair of the NRE Department, and between Oct 2008 and June 2010, he served at the Director of the University of Florida Training Reactor (UFTR). Prior to 2001, Prof. Haghighat taught at the Pennsylvania State University for 15 years.

Prof. Haghighat is a fellow of the American Nuclear Society (ANS). He is director of the Virginia Tech Transport Theory Group (VT3G). Over the past 27 years, Prof. Haghighat has been involved in the development of new particle transport computational methodologies and large computer codes for modeling and simulation of nuclear systems including reactors, nuclear security and safeguards systems, and medical devices. His work is recognized internationally. He has published over 230 papers, received several best paper awards, and presented numerous invited workshops, seminars, and papers nationally and internationally. He received the 2011 Radiation Protection Shielding Division’s Professional Excellence Award, and recognition award from the Office of Global Threat Reduction for his leadership and contributions to design and analysis for the University of Florida Training Rector HEU to LEU fuel conversion in 2006.

Prof. Haghighat is an active member of the American Nuclear Society, and has served at various leadership positions. He has served as Chair of the Reactor Physics Division (2012-13) and the Mathematics and Computation Division (2005-06), was co-founder of the Computational Medical Physics Working Group, and served as Chair of NEDHO (Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization) (2006-07).

Prof. Haghighat contributed to the formation of the SUNRISE (Southeast Universities Nuclear Reactors Institute for Science and Education) not-for-profit organization, and he was Chairman of the Board of SUNRISE (2010-2014), and currently is leading the LPCF (Low-Power Critical Facility) project. Prof. Haghighat represents VT on the board of the recently established Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium (VNEC) Authority.

For further detail, visit http://nsel.ncr.vt.edu, or contact Prof. Haghighat at [email protected].

Education

    Ph.D., University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 1986
    M.S., University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 1981
    B.S., Pahlavi (Shiraz) University, Shiraz, Iran, 1978

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

    Hybrid, multi-scale, parallel particle transport theory methods for modeling and simulation of nuclear systems in power, medicine, and security and safeguards; Automated variance reduction techniques for fixed-source and eigenvalue Monte Carlo calculations; Advanced numerical techniques/algorithms for solving the linear Boltzmann equation (LBE); Methodologies and tools for detection of nuclear materials using active and passive interrogation systems; Computational methods in reactor physics and shielding; Algorithms for image reconstruction in medical devices; Advanced algorithms for generation of multigroups nuclear cross sections; Sensitivity and perturbation methods; nuclear reactor digital control and severe accidents issues

Personal Interests

    Playing sport including basketball, volleyball and ping pong. Traveling and learning about the other cultures. Spending quality time with his family. News and politics.

Books

Featured Title
 Featured Title - Monte Carlo Methods for Particle Transport - 1st Edition book cover