with Mark DeHart
Fellow of the American Nuclear Society,
Abilene Christian University’s Nuclear Science and Engineering

Dr. Mark DeHart will share his journey returning to Texas to establish Abilene Christian University’s Nuclear Science and Engineering graduate program and advance molten‑salt reactor research through the MSRR initiative. His talk will explore how small modular reactors (SMRs) could power next‑generation data centers, bridging nuclear technology with high‑performance computing and AI. He will also outline ACU’s plans to develop an HPC facility that supports reactor modeling, STEM education, and interdisciplinary innovation.

About Our Presenter

Dr. Mark D. DeHart, a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society, holds B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M University and since June 2025 has served as the founding director of Abilene Christian University’s Nuclear Science and Engineering graduate program. He is a former senior staff member at Idaho and Oak Ridge National Laboratories, where he led high‑fidelity reactor physics and multiphysics simulation efforts on modern HPC architectures.

His work includes development and deployment of large‑scale neutron transport, depletion, and transient analysis workflows using parallel Monte Carlo methods, lattice physics solvers, and multiphysics coupling strategies optimized for distributed‑memory systems. He has directed computational campaigns supporting advanced reactor concepts, nuclear thermal propulsion systems for NASA, and safety analysis, routinely leveraging national HPC resources for full‑core and transient simulations. At ACU, Dr. DeHart is leading efforts to establish a dedicated HPC facility to support reactor modeling, AI‑driven analysis, and STEM research across the university.