Schriener promoted to research associate professor

October 12, 2023 - by Kim Delker

Photo: Timothy Schriener
Timothy Schriener

Timothy Schriener has been promoted to research associate professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering.

He has been with UNM’s Institute for Space and Nuclear Power Studies (ISNPS) since 2016, beginning as a postdoctoral research fellow. He has been working closely with the founding director and Distinguished and Regents Professor Mohamed S. El-Genk and graduate students on cutting-edge research funded by awards and grants from NASA, the Department of Energy, industry, and Idaho National Laboratory (managed by Battelle Energy Alliance) in a variety of areas.

These areas include space nuclear power; radioisotope power systems; alkali and heavy liquid metals technology; miniature submersible pumping options on alkali metals and molten; neutronics and computational fluid dynamics methods and application to the design; thermal-hydraulics and safety analyses of small modular and micro nuclear reactors; radiation shields; modeling and simulation of the transient operation of low- and high-temperature heat pipes, including the startup from a frozen state; and cybersecurity of nuclear reactor systems.

He is currently a co-principal investigator on multiple funded awards. These include a Department of Energy Nuclear Engineering University Program (NEUP) project with Purdue University investigating the development and application of AI and machine-learning methods to the autonomous control of microreactors; a NASA Early Stages Innovation grant to develop an innovative lightweight heat pipe radiator panel concept for waste heat rejection of nuclear reactor systems for space exploration and lunar surface power; and a Department of Energy Integrated Research Project with City College of New York, Purdue and Argonne National Laboratory to develop and investigate advanced computational fluid dynamics capabilities for thermal-hydraulics and safety analyses of advanced GEN-IV sodium fast reactors and very high temperature helium-cooled reactors.

He is a widely published researcher and works closely with graduate and undergraduate students at ISNPS to train them on the development, use, and application of nuclear reactors’ modeling and simulation methods for ongoing research at ISNPS.