Bio
Dr. Steve Skutnik is a Research and Development Staff member in the Reactor and Nuclear Systems Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), joining the group in 2019. His current research activities include performing support analyses for non-light water reactor systems for purposes of safety and international safeguards applications and serving as a contributing developer to the larger SCALE code system for reactor analysis and licensing.
Dr. Skutnik serves as the product owner for the ORIGAMI interface for the ORIGEN code for nuclear transmutation and decay calculations and also serves as a primary support contact for ORIGEN, leading biennial training courses organized by the SCALE team on the use of ORIGEN and ORIGAMI for nuclear fuel depletion calculations.
Prior to joining ORNL as a staff member, he was an Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville from 2012 to 2019, where his areas of research work included nuclear fuel cycle analysis, radioactive waste management, and safeguards for the nuclear fuel cycle. He has taught courses on radioactive waste management, the nuclear fuel cycle, and a radiation detection and measurement laboratory. His primary research interests there were spent fuel characterization and source terms, nuclear data evaluation for advanced nuclear fuel cycle and safeguards applications, and the development of safeguards and material accountancy techniques for novel fuel cycles, including pyroprocessing and liquid-fueled molten salt reactors.
Education
Ph.D., Nuclear Engineering, North Carolina State University, 2011
M.S., Nuclear Physics, Iowa State University, 2005
B.S. in Physics & Astronomy, Iowa State University, 2002
Professional Affiliations
Member, American Nuclear Society