NPRE Ph.D. candidate Sari Alkhatib has being selected as one of the Mavis Future Faculty Fellows (MF3) for the 2022-2023 academic year. Through this program, the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois aims to train next generation of engineering professors to be proficient in research, teaching, and mentoring.
Since August 2019, Sari has been working as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Socio-Technical Risk Analysis (SoTeRiA) Research Laboratory, directed by NPRE Associate Professor Zahra Mohaghegh. Sari’s research focuses on the advancements of risk-informed methodologies for commercial nuclear power plants and advanced reactors. By utilizing fire probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) and FLEX (Diverse and Flexible Coping strategies) as case studies, he is working on establishing a multi-level decision-making framework to achieve substantial reduction in costs while ensuring safety in nuclear power plants.
Sari has participated in two SoTeRiA research projects, funded by the Department of Energy (DOE):
- In an academia-industry project, Sari focused on the enhancement of fire PRA realism.
- In an ongoing Nuclear Energy University Programs (NEUP) project, he has been developing an Integrated PRA (I-PRA) risk- and cost-informed decision-making algorithm to support the deployment of new technologies in nuclear power plants.
Sari received his B.Sc. in Nuclear Engineering from the Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) in 2012. In 2014, he obtained his M.Sc. in Advanced Nuclear Systems Engineering at the University of Science and Technology (UST) in South Korea. During this period, Sari worked as a researcher in the Core Design Team of the Research Reactor Development Division at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI). In 2015, he was employed as a Nuclear Engineer by Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) in the Nuclear Safety and Licensing Department at the Jordan Research and Training Reactor (JRTR). His assigned duties at JRTR included: following up with multiple licensing issues, participation in the commissioning and operation activities, conducting radiation dose calculations, and finally working in the Emergency Preparedness Team from 2017 to 2019.