Alireza Haghighat, Ph.D., Fellow of American Nuclear Society
Professor and Chair of the NRE Department
Director of University of Florida Transport Theory Group (UFTTG)
Interim Director of Florida Institute of Nuclear Detection and Security (FINDS)

 

Education

Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, (Dec. ‘86)
M.S. in Nuclear Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, (June ‘81)
B.S. in Physics, Pahlavi (Shiraz) University, Shiraz, Iran, (June ‘78)

Appointments

August 2001-present Professor and Chair, University of Florida
August 1999-present President and CEO of H&S Adv. Comp. Tech. Inc. (www.hsact.com)
August 1998-July 2001 Professor, Penn State University
February-August 1998 Visiting Scientist at SCK•CEN, Mol, Belgium
August 1993 Associate Professor, Penn State University
July-August 1990 Faculty Research Participant, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Engineering, Physics and Mathematics Division (EPMD)
August 1989 Assistant Professor, Penn State University
June 1988 Research Associate, Penn State University
November 1986 Research Assistant, Penn State University

Experience (1989-Present )

Professor Alireza Haghighat has been involved in development and modification of large computer codes for nuclear reactor simulations for the past 19 years. In particular, he has been involved in development of accurate and efficient particle transport theory methods and their application to different complex nuclear systems. In the area of statistical Monte Method, he and his group, Penn State Transport Theory Group (PSTTG) and more recently University of Florida Transport Theory Group (UFTTG), have developed an automated variance reduction methodology (A3MCNP – Automated Adjoint Accelerated MCNP) for shielding applications by the use of deterministic importance function. In the area of deterministic methods, Professor Haghighat and his students have developed several vector and parallel algorithms for the discrete ordinates (Sn) solution method. These investigations have led to the development of an advanced 3-D parallel Sn code system, PENTRAN (Parallel Environment Neutral-particle TRANsport), for distributed-memory and distributed computing environments. Both A3MCNP and PENTRAN have been used successfully for simulation of several complex nuclear system problems including PWR cavity dosimetry, BWR core-shroud neutron and gamma DPA calculation, storage cask neutron and gamma dose estimation, PGNAA device analysis, x-ray room simulation, CT-scan simulation, and more recently simulation of a time-of-flight experiment. In addition to transport codes, he and students have developed new formulations for generation of group structure for and collapsing of multi-group cross sections.

During his sabbatical leave at SCK.CEN, Belgium, Professor Haghighat developed PENMSH (a Cartesian-based mesh, source, and material generator), and PEINIP (for automatic PENTRAN input preparation) for the PENTRAN package. Later, he modified PENMSH for preparation of TORT input including source, material and mesh distributions.

Additionally, Professor Haghighat was one of the major contributors to the Institute for High Performance Computing Applications (IHPCA) and creation of a graduate minor in HPC at Penn State. He also developed and taught a course entitled “Parallel/Vector Algorithms for Scientific Applications,” 1996-2001.

Honors and Awards

  • Alpha Nu Sigma - National Nuclear Engineering Honor Society, Washington Alpha Chapter, 1981
  • Sigma Xi - The Scientific Research Society, Penn State University, 1988
  • Who's Who in Science and Engineering, 1989-present
  • Fellow, American Nuclear Society, 2002 (For pioneering contributions to the development of accurate and efficient deterministic and stochastic particle transport theory methods and their application to different complex nuclear systems; for major contribution to multigroup cross section generation, differencing schemes, domain decomposition formulations for parallel computing, iterative and acceleration techniques, and for work in automating the Monte Carlo variance reduction of fixed-source problems.)
  • Received several best paper awards; presented numerous invited papers

Publication

Prof. Haghighat have published over 180 papers in Journals, and Conference Proceedings and Transactions. See Publication List, Best Paper Award and Invited Papers.

Research Centers