Xiatong Yang
PhD Student in the Nuclear Engineering Department
Yang finished his bachelor's in Nuclear Engineering at PHELA Institute de Grenoble in France and obtained his Master's degree in Nuclear Engineering from UC Berkeley. His recent research concentrates on the ARB process. Two main interests are Cu with Graphene and Zr with Tungsten.
Jared Justice
PhD Student in the Nuclear Engineering Department
Jared earned his MS in Nuclear Engineering from UNM in 2023 and his BS in Engineering Physics with a specialization in aerospace engineering from The Ohio State University in 2021. During undergrad, he interned in an optics and photonics lab where he developed systems for application in neurophotonic circuits, remote satellite attitude control, and optical stellar interferometry. At UNM, his main research subject will be assessing fracture toughness of ZrH.
Cemal Cakez
PhD Student in the Nuclear Engineering Department
Malak Bani-Melhem
PhD Candidate in the Nuclear Engineering Department
Malak earned her B.Sc. in Nuclear Engineering from Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) in 2012 and completed her M.Sc. in Nuclear Engineering at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in 2021. She is currently pursuing her PhD at UNM, focusing on mechanistic source term evaluations in Lead-Cooled Fast Reactors (LFRs). Her research integrates experimental and computational methods to analyze fission product behavior, using high-temperature molten lead experiments and advanced neutronics and burnup simulations with OpenMC. Before joining UNM, Malak worked at Jordan's Energy and Minerals Regulatory Commission (EMRC), where she led the nuclear safeguards team. Her broader expertise includes material characterization and testing, reactor physics, fuel burnup analysis, radiation transport modeling, and high-performance computing for large-scale nuclear simulations.
Daniel Lavario
MS Student in the Nuclear Engineering Department
Daniel earned his bachelor's degree in Nuclear Engineering from the University of New Mexico (UNM) in 2024. During his undergrad, he completed two internships at two national laboratories, gaining extensive experience in nuclear research. At Idaho National Laboratory, Daniel contributed to the debugging and development of the Multi-Physics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) for nuclear energy applications, collaborating with MIT to investigate light bridge metallic fuel rods. He also interned at Sandia National Laboratories, where he focused on improving nuclear criticality calculations for nuclear thermal propulsion rockets. Daniel is now pursuing a master’s degree with the Extreme Materials Group (XMAT) at UNM, where his research will focus on stagnant testing with lead-lithium to assess the compatibility of various materials for fusion applications.
Xavier Angus
MS Student in the Nuclear Engineering Department
Xavier earned his bachelor's degree in Nuclear Engineering from UNM in 2024. During his undergraduate studies, he interned with the Accelerator Operations and Technology Division at Los Alamos National Labs, where he developed code to simulate Free Electron Lasers. Currently, Xavier is researching the development of a liquid lead-lithium loop to assess its corrosive and magnetohydrodynamic properties.
Louis Sanchez
Senior, Department of Nuclear Engineering
Louis is currently working on setting up the Lobo Hot Cell for remote mechanical testing of irradiated specimens. He is delevoping solutions to perform cryogenic testing at various sub-zero temperatures.
Aaron Holzer
Senior, Department of Nuclear Engineering
Aaron is working on analysizing the grain structrue and mechanical properties of additively manufactured HEA and MEA alloys.
Former Research Assistant Professor:
Dr. Madhavan Radhakrishnan (2021) joined as Professional Research Staff, Center for Agile and Adaptive Additive Manufacturing, University of North Texas, Texas, USA.
"Dr. Madhavan joined the Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of New Mexico as a research assistant professor in September 2020. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow in 2 years in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at UNM and research associate for 3 years in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His current research is to understand the role of interfaces in the irradiation resistance of mechanically processed Zr/Nb multilayers. He received a Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru, for his research on processing-crystallographic texture-microstructure relationships in face-centered cubic materials. He obtained his Bachelor's degree in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India in 2006."
Former Post-Doctoral Researchers:
Dr. Zhexian Zhang (2019) joined Kyoto University, Japan.
Former Graduate Students:
Jake Noltensmeyer (MSNE, 2023)
Jake earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Texas Tech University. He is currently researching the corrosive properties of molten Lead-Bismuth for fast reactor applications as part of his Master of Science in Nuclear Engineering. Jake now works at Sandia National Labs.
Khaled Talaat (PhD Nuclear Engineering Department 2022)
Khaled's dissertation focused on the "Computational methods, investigations, and codes to support corrosion experiments in molten lead and transfer to reactor conditions."
Md Mehadi Hassan (Ph.D. Nanoscience and Microsystems Engineering Department 2022)
Mehadi's dissertation focused on " Characterization of materials properties in Additively Manufactured AISI-420 martensitic steel deposited by Laser engineered net shaping." Now works at Los Alamos National Lab.
Shuprio Ghosh (MSNE 2022)
Works at Los Alamos National Lab.
Brandon Bohanon (MSNE 2022)
Brandon's thesis was focused on the "Joining of Candidate Materials for Lead-Cooled Fast Reactors."
Daria Bolgova (MSNE 2022)
"Daria was working on creating a multilayer ARB processed Ni/Ta specimens, analyzing its structure and testing its radiation and corrosion properties."
Aidana Bauyrzhan (MSNE 2022)
Aidana was working to determine the physical properties of ARB processed composites and characterize the thermal and electrical conductivity of Cu/Nb specimens.
James Pike (MSNE, 2018).
Now works at Los Alamos National Lab. James was investigating the phase stability of gamma prime and gamma double prime precipitates, found in precipitation-hardened Alloy 718, under high temperature and irradiation environment.
Former Undergraduate Students:
Mike Trombetta (BSNE 2025)
June 2023-May2025
Mike is now a PhD. at the University of Michigan. Mike worked on radioisotope retention in stagnat Pb for mechanistic source term evaluation for lead-cooled fast reactors
Kyle Hansen (BSNE 2025)
Ashley Machado (BSNE 2023)
Currently a Graduate Student at UNM. Works at Sandia National Labs.
Christopher Wolfe
MS in the Nuclear Engineering Department
Stephanie Ida Gammill
Freshman in the Nuclear Engineering Department. Now works at Sandia National Lab.
Gemma Irais Strong ( BS in 2020). Now works at The Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant.
Deep Patel ( BS in 2019). Graduate student at the University of Michigan.
Eslam Ali (BS in 2019- Transferred to Idaho state university).
Carly Romnes ( BS in 2018). Graduate student at the University of Illinois.
Paul Yang ( BS in 2018). Now works at The Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant.
Jesus Valencia (BS in 2018). Now works at Sandia National Lab.
