Team

Principal Investigator 

Minghui Chen, Ph.D.

Dr. Minghui Chen joined the University of New Mexico as an Assistant Professor in 2019. Prior to that, Dr. Chen was a research fellow in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor. Dr. Chen earned his B.S. degree in Nuclear Engineering from Harbin Engineering University in China in 2011, his M.S. degree in Nuclear Engineering from The Ohio State University in 2015, and Ph.D. degree in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor in 2018. 

Dr. Minghui Chen is an inaugural winner of the Distinguished Early Career Award granted by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy. 

Research Assistant Professor

Mingfu He, Ph.D.

Dr. Mingfu He is a research assistant professor in LARES. Mingfu obtained his B.S. degree in nuclear science and engineering from Chengdu University of Technology in 2016, his M.S. and Ph.D degrees in nuclear engineering respectively in 2019 and 2022 from the University of New Mexico. Mingfu’s experimental research focuses on molten salt steam generator development based printed circuit technologies, cutting-edge metrological sensors verification and validation in Gen IV reactor thermal hydraulics experiments and material conjugated boiling heat transfer using new alloys including accident tolerant fuel claddings. His computational interests are to apply the machine learning technologies to assess thermal and structural risks of fuel-clad entities, and predict parameters of interests including critical heat flux and peak cladding temperature, maintain health conditions of light water reactor cores.  

Graduate Research Assistants

Yuqi Liu


M.S., Safety Engineering, Southwest University of Science and Technology, 2018


Phat Doan


B.S., Nuclear Engineering, University of New Mexico, 2021


Anutam Bairagi


B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Bangladesh, 2021


Braden Foderaro


B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Brigham Young University, 2023

Bao Nguyen


B.S., Nuclear Engineering, The University of New Mexico, 2024

Alexandra Martinez


B.S., Nuclear Engineering, The University of New Mexico, 2024

Undergraduate Students

Alumni

Postdoctoral Fellows


Ph.D. Students


Master's Students


Undergraduate Students

Interested in joining the team

If you are a student who is interested in learning more about our research, or are interested in joining the lab, please contact Prof. Minghui Chen.