Director
After receiving his B.S. and M.S. degrees in engineering physics from Tsinghua University in 1999 and 2002, Dr. Ji then came to the U.S. to enter the Ph.D. program in Nuclear Engineering at the University of Michigan, earning his M.S. in 2004 and Ph.D. in 2007. During this period, Dr. Ji had participated in several DOE funded projects on the research, development and demonstration of Very-high Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors, one of the promising candidates for Next Generation Nuclear Power Plant. He had been a research specialist at General Atomics and Argonne National Laboratory in 2005, working on the advanced fuel cycle designs using deep-burn gas cooled reactors for the transmutation of used fuel. After receiving his Ph.D. at Michigan, Dr. Ji joined RPI as an Assistant Professor in January 2008. He was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure in July 2015 and Full Professor in January 2022. In 2023, he was named William H. Hernstadt '57 Faculty Fellow in Nuclear Engineering. At RPI, Dr. Ji leads the Nuclear Computing and Multi-Physics (NuCoMP) Research Group, focusing on the development of innovative computation techniques to address emerging challenges in areas of nuclear energy, medical physics, nuclear safety/security, and space exploration. Dr. Ji's research team has addressed crosscutting challenges, and proposed new solutions to problems arising from future nuclear reactor designs, radiation therapy for cancer, Monte Carlo/deterministic methods and tools development, radiation effects and rad-hard design of power devices, and encompassing other nuclear related multidisciplinary research issues. These accomplishments have directly contributed to DOE Office of Nuclear Energy's Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) Program, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Research Program, NIH National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) Program, and NASA Early Stage Innovation (ESI) Program, by innovating modeling tools for advanced reactor designs, modernizing safety/licensing assessment paradigm for nuclear reactor regulation, accelerating dose computation for clinical diagnosis and treatment of cancer, and delivering rad-hard power devices for space missions. Dr. Ji has made his strong standings in leading world-class research to meet world's demands on sustainable energy, better health treatment, and future space colonization. Since 2008 Dr. Ji joined RPI, he has published over 160 peer-reviewed scientific papers. He and his team have received numerous awards from Department of Energy and American Nuclear Society for their outstanding research achievements. Dr. Ji's research is well funded by Department of Energy (DOE), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Institute of Health (NIH), Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), National Science Foundation (NSF), Los Alamos National Laboratory and industries, with a total amount of over $14M. In addition to excelling in research, Dr. Ji has demonstrated a strong commitment to enhancing the educational experience of students. He is an outstanding educator, winning the 2019 Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools Teaching Award, and in 2018 winning both the Rensselaer Alumni Association Teaching Award and the RPI School of Engineering Education Innovation Award.