Dr. Dean Wang is an Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering at The Ohio State University, where he leads the Nuclear Computing Group within the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He holds a Ph.D. from MIT in reactor physics and fuel management, and master’s degrees from both Purdue University and Tsinghua University, where he also completed his undergraduate studies in nuclear engineering. His research sits at the intersection of computational mathematics and nuclear engineering, with a focus on developing advanced numerical methods for neutron transport, reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and multiphysics coupling. Among his most notable current projects is NASA-funded work on the Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Rocket, exploring next-generation nuclear propulsion systems capable of enabling crewed missions to Mars, alongside NRC-funded work on high-fidelity neutronics modeling for advanced reactor transient analysis.
Dr. Wang brings a broad career spanning academia, national laboratory research, and regulatory support. Prior to joining Ohio State, he held faculty positions at UMass Lowell and was an R&D staff member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he played a significant role in the U.S. Department of Energy’s emergency response to the Fukushima Daiichi accident and contributed to foundational research on accident-tolerant fuels. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 refereed journal articles and has received multiple best paper awards from the American Nuclear Society, where he is also an active member across several technical divisions. He currently serves as General Chair of the 2027 International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2027).