2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo

Mohamed S. El-Genk, PhD

Distinguished and Regents’ Professor of Nuclear Engineering, with courtesy faculty appointments in the Mechanical Engineering and the Chemical and Biological Engineering Departments

University of New Mexico (UNM)

Founding director of the Institute for Space and Nuclear Power Studies

El-Genk is a prolific author and recognized national and international expert in terrestrial nuclear engineering and technology and space nuclear power and propulsion, His published work is widely recognized and cited worldwide. Prior to joining UNM, he had more than 13 years of research and industry experience in energy systems and nuclear reactors’ thermal-hydraulics and safety. His latest position in industry was an Engineering Specialist at Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID. He authored and co-authored more than 850 referred journal and conference Proceedings articles, Transactions’ summaries, and technical reports, and 8 book chapters, and published a book on space nuclear power.

He is the Editor of more than 50 book volumes containing more than 5,000 full-length technical papers and chapters on a wide range of technical areas. Some of these include nuclear reactors design, safety and thermal-hydraulics, nuclear fuel and materials, heat transfer, space exploration, elevated temperature materials, and space nuclear power and propulsion. These book volumes have documented technical advances made worldwide in areas of space nuclear power and propulsion and many related technical disciplines in the period from 1984 to 2018.

El-Genk has seven US patents to his credit, and more pending and was named at UNM the 46th Annual Research Lecturer; one of the highest honors bestowed upon a member of the faculty at the University of New Mexico. He was also promoted to the rank of Regents’ Professor of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering in 1996, a prestigious recognition by the UNM board of Regents that celebrates the unique and outstanding accomplishment made by a faculty member and to the rank of Distinguished Professor of Nuclear Engineering in 2018, the highest honor bestowed on a faculty member at UNM. He has also received the Faculty Recognition Award for having the greatest impact on graduating seniors, the School of Engineering (SOE) Research and Teaching Excellence Awards, the Graduate Students' Outstanding Teacher Award in Nuclear Engineering, and the Presidential Lectureship Award. Since joining the faculty at UNM in 1981, El-Genk supervised 30 Master Theses and 35 PhD Dissertations.

El-Genk has been an active participant at professional societies and organizations, including the American Nuclear Society (ANS), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS), and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). El-Genk was named Fellow of ANS, ASME, AIChE and IAASS and an Associate Fellow of AIAA and received a DOE Certificate of Appreciation for his Outstanding Contributions to the field of Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion and served on NASA’s Space Exploration of the Solar System Technology Assessment Group and the Advanced Radioisotope Power System (ARPS) Team Technology Assessment and Recommended Roadmap for Potential NASA Code S Missions Beyond 2011.

He is named the recipient of ANS Distinguished Faculty Member Honor, AIChE Heat Transfer and Energy Conversion Division Award, AICHE Donald Q. Kern Memorial Award, one of the most prestigious in the world, for advances in applications of heat and mass transfer, the ANS 2015 thermal-hydraulics Achievement Award, the ASME 2017 Heat Transfer Memorial Award, for outstanding Contributions to boiling enhancement; immersion cooling of electronics; force, natural and combined convection in rod bundles; heat pipes and thermosyphons; imping and swirling jets heat transfer; thermal hydraulics of nuclear reactors; and thermal management of space nuclear power systems, the ANS 2020 Reactor Technology Award, in recognition of extraordinary contributions towards advancing space and micro reactor technologies, and the United States Department of Energy Certificate of Appreciation, for an Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion, December 1992. He is included in 2021, 2002 and 2023 listings of the World's Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University.

El-Genk served on and chaired the ASME/AIChE Board for the prestigious Max Jacob Memorial Award in heat transfer and the AIChE Committee of Donald Q. Kern Memorial Award, the ASME / AIChE National Heat Transfer Conference Coordinating Committee, and the Executive Committees of both the AIChE Heat Transfer and Energy Conversion Division, and the Transport and Energy Processes Division. He was the Assistant Technical Program Chair of the ANS 1996 summer annual meeting and the Technical Program Chair of the ANS Winter Annual Meeting, November 1997. He is a member of the Scientific Council of the International Center for Heat and Mass Transfer, the IAASS Academic Committee, US delegate on the Assembly of the International Heat Transfer Conference. He served as Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Thermal Sciences and Engineering Applications (2014-2018). 2

El-Genk organized and served as the Technical and Publication Chair of the annual Symposium space nuclear power and propulsion (1984-1994) and the space technology and applications internal forum (1995 – 2008), attended annually by more than 500 national and international researchers, industry and government professionals, academicians, students. He has delivered many keynotes and plenary talks, has served on the technical and scientific committees of many national and international conferences, and is the recipient of best papers awards at numerous national and international technical conferences.

In 2011, El-Genk was a visiting scholar and guest lecturer of a short course on “Nuclear Power Systems for Enabling Space Exploration and Human Outposts: Potential, History, Design, and Safety,” at the European Space Agency‐European Space Research and Technology Center, Noordwijk, Netherlands. He has been a visiting scholar and lecturer at the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique’s Nuclear Energy Center in Saclay, France, and the Belgian Nuclear Center in Mol, Von Karman Institute in Brussels, Belgium, Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe (KFK) Laboratory, Germany, Moscow Aviation Institute, Russia, the Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority, and Egyptian National Research Center.

In 1989, El-Genk concluded the first academic and students exchange and research collaborative agreements between a US University (UNM) and peer institutions at the Russian Republic after the Cold War. These included the Russian’s Research Center‐Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy in Moscow, Russia, the Moscow Aviation Institute; and the institute for Physics and Power Engineering in Obninsk, Russia. He has been a founding member of the New Mexico Alliance for Thermionics for joint research on space nuclear power systems’ technology and conducted integrated system testing at UNM’s Research Park (1991-1996). Member organizations of the alliance were Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the University of New Mexico, US Air Force Phillips Laboratory, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and France.

Areas of technical expertise include design, integration, and transient simulation of space and terrestrial nuclear reactors and power systems; thermal-hydraulics, safety and neutronics design and analyses of nuclear reactors; nuclear fuel swelling; core damage and design basis accidents; embrittlement and oxidation kinetics of Zircaloy; molten fuel coolant interaction in core meltdown accidents; nuclear fuels and high temperature materials for terrestrial and space nuclear reactors; radiation shielding for space reactors and from energetic solar radiation; Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) analyses of nuclear reactors and complex systems; Molecular Dynamic (MD) simulation of material properties and irradiation effect; oxidation kinetics of nuclear graphite during a massive air or vapor ingress accident; boiling heat transfer and two-phase flow; critical heat flux; forced, laminar and combined convection in annuli and rod bundles; thermal-hydraulics of liquid metals in multi-rod bundles and helically-coiled tubes heat exchangers; heat pipes and thermosyphons; thermal management of space power systems; design and analyses of heat rejection radiators, design and safety analyses of LWRs, VHTRs, SFRs, and small and micro modular nuclear reactors; Static (Thermoelectric (TE), Thermionic (TI), and Alkali-metals Thermal-to-Electric Conversion (AMTEC)); Closed Brayton Cycle (CBC) energy conversion; design and modeling of axial and centrifugal-flow turbo-machines for closed Brayton cycle; multi-physics modeling and simulation of nuclear reactor and energy systems; nuclear reactor and radioisotope power systems for planetary surface power and space exploration; advanced cooling of high power electronics; flow and heat transfer in micro-channels; cybersecurity of nuclear reactor power plants and space nuclear reactor power systems, and recently the application of machine learning Algorithms to remote operation and control of microreactors.