GIF-IAEA Joint Webinar: Artificial Intelligence Advances in the Nuclear Energy Sector

Dr. Hany S. Abdel-Khalik is a Professor in the School of Nuclear Engineering at Purdue University and the Founder of Covert Defenses LLC. He serves as Technical Lead of the IAEA Collaborating Centre on Artificial Intelligence for Nuclear Power and directs the CYNICS Research Group at Purdue, where his work focuses on advanced modeling, artificial intelligence, and resilient digital systems.

He earned his Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Nuclear Engineering from North Carolina State University and his B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from Alexandria University, Egypt. His professional experience includes academic appointments at Purdue University and North Carolina State University, joint faculty service with Idaho National Laboratory, and industry experience with AREVA-NP.

Dr. Abdel-Khalik’s research brings together information theory, physics-informed modeling, uncertainty quantification, and digital twin methodologies. His work has contributed to the development of entropy-driven approaches to anomaly detection, industrial system resilience, and secure data architectures, with results documented in peer-reviewed publications and intellectual property disclosures.

He has received several recognitions for research, mentorship, innovation, and technology commercialization.

Mr. Shahab Dabiran is a Nuclear Scientist at the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), where he supports international research on advanced fuel cycles and supports collaborative technical projects on topics such as fuel cycle closure and Artificial Intelligence. He has over 14 years of experience in the nuclear industry. Prior to joining the NEA, he spent nearly a decade at Ontario Power Generation (OPG), supporting the Pickering and Darlington Reactor Physics teams, as well as the Darlington refurbishment return-to-service projects, where he contributed to reactor physics commissioning tests. While at OPG, he developed multiple tools using data science, machine learning, and AI to enhance core surveillance, fuelling strategies, reactivity management, and fuel defect identification.

Prof. Pavel Tsvetkov is a Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University and Director of the Graduate Program, where he leads the Advanced Energy Systems Laboratory. His work focuses on AI‑enabled design, intelligent operations, and advanced reactor and fuel‑cycle technologies, with applications spanning nuclear security, autonomous I&C, waste minimization, and resilient energy systems. He is an active contributor to national and international nuclear security efforts and leads the data science and digital technologies thrust within the NNSA ETI Consortium. Dr. Tsvetkov has published more than 300 peer‑reviewed papers, conference proceedings, and technical reports, and has served as editor or major contributor to 15 books on energy, environment, and nuclear engineering. He holds multiple patents in advanced reactor technologies. His professional service includes leadership roles such as Chair of the ANS Reactor Physics Division, Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science, and current Vice Chair of both the ASME Technical & Strategic Advisory Board and the ANS Publication Steering Committee, as well as Chair of the ANS Book Publishing Committee. He continues to serve on the ANS Reactor Physics Program Committee.

Dr. Alexei Miassoedov graduated in theoretical and experimental physics from the Moscow State Engineering Physics Institute in 1989 and joined the Kurchatov Institute, where he worked on modeling fission product release from irradiated fuel. He earned his PhD in mechanical engineering from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in 1996 and subsequently joined its Institute for Materials Research at the KIT.

From 1996 to 2018, his work focused on reactor safety and severe accident research, including LWR fuel behavior under severe damage conditions, core melt progression, in- and ex-vessel melt retention, and related material behavior.

Since 2018, he has served as a Nuclear Engineer at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), specializing in the technology development of advanced light water reactors within the Nuclear Power Technology Development Section, Division of Nuclear Power, Department of Nuclear Energy.

Dr. Patricia Paviet was the first chair of the GIF Education and Training Working Group (2015-2024). She now focuses on leading the efforts of the successful GIF Education and Training webinars series and has been doing so since the inception of this initiative in September 2016. 
She serves on the GIF MSR pSSC representing the United States since 2021. She joined GIF in November 2015, as chair of the Education and Training Task Force. Outside GIF, Dr. Paviet is the National Technical Director of the Molten Salt Reactor Program for the US Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy. She is managing the research supporting molten salt reactor development across six U.S. national laboratories. She is also a Senior Technical Advisor at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, providing guidance on used nuclear fuel recycling. She has an extensive technical background on the nuclear fuel cycle (front and back end).