Ivanov succeeds Azmy as head of Department of Nuclear Engineering

Dr. Kostadin Ivanov is the new head of the Department of Nuclear Engineering at North Carolina State University.

Ivanov succeeds Dr. Yousry Azmy, who has served as department head for seven years.

Ivanov previously held a position as Distinguished Professor of Nuclear Engineering and graduate coordinator in the nuclear engineering program in the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. His research interests are in reactor physics, fuel management and modeling, coupled space-kinetics/thermal-hydraulics modeling, core analysis and design methods, computer code qualification and uncertainty quantification.

During his time at Penn State, Ivanov established the Reactor Dynamics and Fuel Management Group, which focused on addressing the demands for more accurate and efficient analyses concerning safety and economic performance of current and next-generation nuclear systems. He helped establish Penn State as an international center for qualification of coupled 3D kinetics/thermal-hydraulics codes.

Ivanov’s work has been published in numerous scientific journals and papers and he has been honored with the Department Head Award, Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering (2002); the Outstanding Research Award from the Penn State Engineering Society (2003); and the Penn State Engineering Society Premier Research Award (2009).

He received a B.S. in nuclear engineering from the Moscow Institute of Power Engineering (1982) and a Ph.D. in reactor physics from the Institute of Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (1990).

Ivanov will be taking the place of Dr. Yousry Azmy, who served as head of the department for seven years.

Azmy’s tenure saw the number of bachelor’s degrees in nuclear engineering increase by 47 percent and the number of master’s degrees increase by 56 percent. The department’s faculty grew from eight in 2007 to 17 today, yielding a 174-percent increase in sponsored research awards and a 110-percent increase in total research expenditures.

Under Azmy, NC State nuclear engineering became a founding partner of the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, a Department of Energy-funded effort to make sure that future nuclear reactors can work safely and more efficiently. The department is also leading the Consortium for Nonproliferation Enabling Capabilities (CNEC), which is working on the next generation of detection systems used to ensure nuclear material does not end up in the wrong hands.

Azmy will continue as a faculty member in the department and as director of CNEC.