Farzad Rahnema

Dr. Farzad Rahnema is the Georgia Power Company Distinguished Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Director of the Computational Reactor and Medical Physics (CRMP) Laboratory at Georgia Institute of Technology. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles (1981), an M.S. from Louisiana State University (1977), and a B.S. from Illinois Institute of Technology (1975). Prior to Georgia Tech, he spent 11 years at General Electric Nuclear Energy, leading development of the PANACEA 3-D Core Simulator for reactor design and MONICORE systems for Boiling Water Reactor monitoring.

His research focuses on theoretical and computational radiation transport, reactor physics, and high-fidelity modeling of nuclear systems. Key areas include COMET (Coarse Mesh Radiation Transport) methods, nuclear security, and medical physics applications like radiotherapy calculations. He has published over 240 peer-reviewed articles and holds a U.S. patent (7,676,015B2) for Boundary Condition Adjustment Methods.

Dr. Rahnema is an American Nuclear Society (ANS) Fellow (2003) and recipient of the 2019 ANS Gerald C. Pomraning Memorial Award for contributions to mathematics and computation in nuclear fields. He has served as Chair of Georgia Tech’s Nuclear & Radiological Engineering and Medical Physics Programs (2002–2016), ANS Mathematics and Computation Division (twice), and the Reactor Physics Division (2007–2008).

His leadership extends to editorial roles: Editor-Designate of *Nuclear Science and Engineering*, and advisory board member for *Annals of Nuclear Energy* and *Nuclear Technology*. He founded the Southeastern Universities Nuclear Research Institute for Science and Education (SUNRISE) and chaired the 16th International Conference on Transport Theory (1999).

Research contributions include benchmark problems for advanced reactor designs (e.g., AHTR, SmAHTR), neutronics challenges in fluoride-salt-cooled reactors, and cross-section generation methods. His work bridges computational efficiency and nuclear safety, with applications in reactor core analysis, medical physics, and multiphysics coupling.