FUTURE Postdocs

Amitava Banerjee (LANL)

Amitava Banerjee is a postdoctoral researcher in MST-8 at LANL under the guidance of Blas Uberuaga and Edward Holby. Amitava works on the modeling cross-cutting thrust of FUTURE to study defect thermodynamics and kinetics within the metal and the oxide and at their interface as it pertains to corrosion mechanisms. In his free time, he enjoys photography, cycling and collecting stamps.

Ben Derby (LANL)

Ben Derby is a graduate of The University of Michigan. While there, he studied bicontinuous interfaces in immiscible thin film alloys for enhanced strength and radiation tolerance through the use of physical vapor deposition (PVD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), scanning/transmission electron microscopy (S/TEM), focused ion beam (FIB) techniques, and ion implantation. Under thrust-1 of FUTURE, he is contributing to the synthesis of model system thin films and in situ characterization of defects in irradiated and corroded structural alloys. In his spare time, he enjoys flying airplanes, woodworking, motorcycling, and spending time with his best friends, Sydney and Gus.

Adric Jones (BGSU)

Adric is a post-doctoral researcher at Bowling Green State University. He is helping to design a positron beam system for the in situ study of radiation damage in shielding materials under thrust-1 of FUTURE. In his spare time he likes to play billiards and go hiking.

Hyosim Kim (LANL)

Dr. Hyosim Kim is a graduate of the Texas A&M University’s nuclear engineering department. She has been studying radiation damage in various materials especially nuclear materials such as ODS alloys by using ion accelerator, nanoindenter and electron microscopies such as scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), atom probe tomography (APT), and focused ion beam (FIB). She is experienced in operating and maintaining tandem ion accelerator for radiation damage studies and ion beam analysis; in using electron microscopies for damage and defects characterization; and in operating FIB to fabricate TEM lamellas, APT needles and micro pillars. For the FUTURE project, she is developing an in-situ positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) system on 3 MV NEC tandem accelerator and is also assisting with irradiation and corrosion experiments in liquids. She enjoys painting and playing guitar in her spare time.

Sara Mastromarino (UCB)

Sara Mastromarino is a Post-Doc at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) while she is finishing her PhD in nuclear engineering at Delft University of Technology. Sara spent two years during her PhD at the European Commission-Joint Research Centre working on the chemical and thermo-physical characterization of high temperature molten salt fuels and coolants. She was involved in the international project SAMOFAR for the development of MSFRs. At UCB Sara works on the elemental and physico-chemical  characterization of molten salts. She is involved in a broad range  of projects:  high temperature optical spectroscopy, elemental analysis and digestion methods of molten halides, measurements of liquid density of molten salts, and molten salt tribology and rheology. She overall supports the group with design and planning for the experimental infrastructure (e.g.design of a glove-box train for beryllium-containing and actinide-containing molten salts). Outside of the office, she is a passionate triathlete and she gained top places in several running competitions.   

Sean Mills (UCB)

Jie Qiu (UCB)

Elena Romanovskaia

Dr. Elena Romanovskaia is a postdoctoral researcher in materials science and engineering at the University of Virginia, working on Thrust 3 of the FUTURE project. She is a graduate of Belarusian State Technological University (BSTU), Minsk, Belarus. She defended her PhD thesis in Physical Chemistry at State Scientific Institution “Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of National Academy of Sciences of Belarus” (IGIC NAS of Belarus). For the FUTURE project, Elena is utilizing advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion mechanism and survivability of passivated and irradiated nuclear reactor alloys in extreme environments. She is investigating the effect of room temperature ionic liquids and the molten salts on the thermally formed oxide layer by using electrochemical techniques and surface characterization (XRS, Raman, XRD). She loves traveling, singing, learning languages watching and doing sport.

Ryan Schoell (NCSU)

Kayla Yano (PNNL)