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Speakers

Joseph M. Powers

Joseph M. Powers, Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and Concurrent Professor of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Notre Dame, received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1983, 1985, and 1988, respectively. His research interests include computational mechanics, combustion dynamics and thermodynamics, scientific computing, verification and validation, detonation theory, energetic solids, high-speed propulsion, transition to detonation in solid propellants, reactive porous media, numerical and theoretical methods for multiscale phenomena, and systematic reduction of large systems of chemical kinetics. He is the author of numerous papers in the archival literature, and two graduate textbooks, one on applied mathematics and the other on combustion dynamics.

He led the Verification/Validation/Uncertainty Quantification group within the NNSA-supported Center for Shock Wave-processing of Advanced Reactive Materials (C-SWARM). He has supervised many graduate students since joining the faculty in 1989. He has held appointments at NASA Glenn Research Center, the U.S. Air Force Wright Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is the recipient of numerous teaching and advising awards and a former Associate Department Chair and Director of Undergraduate Studies. He received a NASA Innovative Technology Award in 1999. Dr. Powers is a Member of the American Physical Society, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, ASME, and the Combustion Institute. He is an Associate Fellow of AIAA and the Editor-in-Chief of the AIAA's Journal of Propulsion and Power.

 

Dr. Jennifer Wolk

Dr. Jennifer Wolk is a program officer at the Office of Naval Research in the Naval Materials S&T Division. Her portfolio focuses on Additive Manufacturing Materials and Processes, including an emphasis on rapid qualification tools through integrated computational materials engineering (ICME). Dr. Wolk has almost 20 years of research experience in Naval materials and manufacturing with subject matter expertise in structural metals and advanced manufacturing. In her current role, Dr. Wolk directs basic and applied research for a range of additive manufacturing materials and processes. She has large efforts focusing on coupling computational modeling with in situ sensors and controls, additive repair, data management and large scale additive manufacturing for Naval applications

 

 

 

Dr. Mirela Gavrilas

Dr. Mirela Gavrilas joined the NRC in 2004 and worked on thermal-hydraulics and sever accident issues, as well as on a novel approach to probabilistic safety margins. She served as branch chief in the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research in the Division of Safety analysis and the Division of Engineering. In 2014, she was selected for the Senior Executive Service (SES) position of Deputy Director, Division of Policy and Rulemaking, in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR). She subsequently served as Deputy Director, Division of Risk Assessment and Director of Division of Safety Systems, both in NRR. In June 2019 she was selected as Deputy Office Director for Engineering, NRR, and in December 2019 she assumed her current position as Deputy Office Director for Reactor Safety Programs and Corporate Support, NRR. Mirela has a B.S. degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park and a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.