Jacopo Buongiorno (Nuclear Engineering PhD, MIT, 2000; Nuclear Engineering BS, Polytechnic of Milan, 1996) is an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in thermo-fluids engineering and nuclear reactor engineering. His areas of technical expertise and research interest are nanofluid technology, fluid dynamics, heat transfer, and two-phase flow in advanced nuclear systems.
For his work in these areas and his teaching at MIT, Professor Buongiorno won several awards, including, recently, the 2011 Landis Young Member Engineering Achievement Award (ANS) and the 2011 and Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Distinguished Teaching (School of Engineering, MIT). He has authored over 100 journal and peer-reviewed conference publications.
He is a member of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME); Co-Director of the Reactor Technology Course for Nuclear Utility Executives, which is offered jointly by MIT and the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO); and a consultant for the nuclear industry (AREVA, Westinghouse, and South Texas Project) in the area of reactor thermal hydraulics. He serves on the ANS Special Committee on Fukushima, and on the accrediting board of INPO’s National Academy of Nuclear Training (NANT). From 2000 to 2004 he worked as a research scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), where he led the DOE’s Generation-IV program for the development of the supercritical water cooled reactor in the United States.