Dan Kotlyar

Dr. Dan Kotlyar is an Associate Professor in the Nuclear and Radiological Engineering Department at Georgia Tech’s G.W.W. School of Mechanical Engineering. He holds a B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2008–2013). His research focuses on advanced reactor modeling, nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP), and thermophotovoltaic microreactors. He leads the Computational Reactor Engineering (CoRE) Lab, developing tools for multi-physics analysis and reactor design optimization. Key projects include NTP systems for Mars missions and low-enriched uranium fuels.

Education:

• B.Sc. Nuclear Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2008
• M.Sc. Nuclear Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2010
• Ph.D. Nuclear Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2013

Research interests include:

• Monte Carlo depletion-thermal hydraulic coupling
• Advanced reactor design (NTP, microreactors)
• Fuel cycle optimization for proliferation resistance
• Multi-physics code development (e.g., SerpentTools)

Notable achievements:

• Recipient of the NRC Faculty Development Fellowship
• 2019 AIAA Aerospace Power Systems Best Student Paper (co-authored)
• 2019 Spring Capstone Expo Best Senior Design Project

Advising and grants:

• Ph.D. student Vedant Mehta won DOE Innovation Award (2019)
• Funded by BWX Technologies for NTP computational frameworks

Labs/teams: Computational Reactor Engineering (CoRE) Lab, focusing on reactor physics tools and advanced system design.