Dr. Mihai Diaconeasa obtained his B.S. degree from University College Utrecht, the international undergraduate honors college of Utrecht University, the Netherlands, his M.S. in Nuclear Science and Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). After his graduation, Dr. Diaconeasa held the postdoctoral research scholar position at the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences from the School of Engineering at UCLA.

Over the past years, Dr. Diaconeasa has developed the methodologies needed to design and implement a suite of computer codes in the probabilistic risk, reliability, and resilience assessment (PRA) fields for nuclear, aerospace, and maritime industries. He has served as the Associate General Chair for the International Conference on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management (PSAM-14) hosted by UCLA in 2018, as the Track Chair/Co-Chair of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Design, Reliability, Safety, and Risk at the International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE) since 2020, and Publications Chair of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) International Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Analysis Conference in 2023 (PSA 2023) and Advanced Reactor Safety (ARS) Embedded Topical in the 2024 ANS Annual Meeting. He will serve as the Technical Program Chair of the Advanced Reactor Safety Embedded Topical in the 2026 ANS Annual Meeting.

Additionally, Dr. Diaconeasa is the Chair of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Safety Engineering and Risk Analysis Division (SERAD) Executive Committee, the Chair of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) Nuclear Installations Safety Division (NISD) Executive Committee and the Vice Chair of the ANS Advanced Reactor Working Group (ARWG). Also, he serves as the Chair of the ANS Standards Committee ANS-30.2 and member of ANS-30.1 Working Groups under the Research and Advanced Reactors Consensus Committee and is the Vice Chair of the “Probabilistic Design Methods” Subcommittee, “Plant Systems Design” ASME Standards Committee.

Dr. Diaconeasa leads the design and development of ADS-IDAC, a dynamic probabilistic risk assessment methodology and software platform for nuclear power plants and is the founder of the OpenPRA Initiative dedicated to designing and developing a wide range of traditional probabilistic risk assessment methods and open source software. For significant contributions to the simulation-based methods for probabilistic risk assessment of current and next generation of nuclear power plants, Dr. Diaconeasa received the ANS David Okrent Award for Nuclear Safety.

During his tenure at the UCLA’s B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences, he has led the development of the Hybrid Causal Logic Analyzer system risk and reliability software used to enhance the design process and assess the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) parts usage in space systems for extended deep space missions at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Phoenix human reliability analysis (HRA) methodology and software adopted by the Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (JNRA).

Research Description

Dr. Diaconeasa’s research focus includes theories, applications, and simulation-based techniques in risk sciences such as traditional and dynamic probabilistic risk assessment, reliability analysis, resilient systems design, probabilistic physics of failure modeling, and Bayesian inference.

Grants

Xe-100 PRA-24 Model Development (ARDP WP 3.4.5.4.3)
US Dept. of Energy (DOE) – Advanced Reactor Demonstration Project (ARDP) (1/1/25 – 6/30/26)

Aalo Atomics Microreactor Pre-Conceptual Design PRA Model Development
Aalo Holdings, Inc. (10/6/23 – 8/15/24)

The Application of Dynamic PRA to Revolutionize the PRA Model Development during the Design, Licensing, and Maintenance Activities of Current LWRs and Advanced Reactors
US Dept. of Energy (DOE) (10/1/23 – 9/30/28)

Multi-Attribute Risk Analysis Techniques
Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (4/13/23 – 9/30/24)

Xe-100 PRA-23 Model Development (ARDP WP 3.4.5.3.3)
US Dept. of Energy (DOE) – Advanced Reactor Demonstration Project (ARDP) (1/1/23 – 12/30/24)

Model-based Software CCF Modeling and Error Propagation for Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems
US Dept. of Energy (DOE) (2/16/23 – 9/30/24)

Multi-Hazard Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Nuclear Facilities
US Dept. of Energy (DOE) (6/9/23 – 9/30/24)

Xe-100 Probabilistic Risk Assessment- Phase 0 to PRA-23 (ARPA-E WP 3.2.1)
US Dept. of Energy (DOE) – Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) (11/16/20 – 12/30/23)

An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions
US Dept. of Energy (DOE) (10/1/21 – 9/30/24)

Simulation-Based Reliability Methodology Development for Autonomous Controls and Adversarial Human Actions Involved in Fission Battery Designs
US Dept. of Energy (DOE) (12/10/20 – 9/30/23)

A Quantitative Approach to Assessing Drugs Supply Chain Disruptions Leading to Shortages
US Food & Drug Administration (9/28/20 – 3/27/22)