Associate Professor

Research Interests

  • Scientific computing education
  • Repository system performance modeling
  • Open & reproducible scientific computing
  • Computational methods for optimization and prediction
  • Coupled multi-physics simulation
  • Reactor neutronics and kinetics
  • Nuclear fuel cycle simulation
  • Advanced nuclear reactor modeling and simulation

Education

  • PhD, Nuclear Engineering, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2013
  • BA, Physics, University of Chicago, 2008

Courses Taught

  • NPRE412, Fall 2016

Additional Campus Affiliations

Education Innovation Fellow, Grainger College of Engineering
Associate Professor, Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering
Director, Advanced Reactors and Fuel Cycles Lab, Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering
Associate Professor, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)

Recent Publications

Bachmann, A. M., Richter, Z., Huff, K. D., & Munk, M. (2026). Effects of Uranium Impurities in Downblended HEU on HTGR Performance. Nuclear Technology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2025.2560690

Dotson, S. G., Munk, M., & Huff, K. D. (2026). Demonstrating the Osier framework for energy system and nuclear fuel cycle optimization. Annals of Nuclear Energy, 230, Article 112151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2026.112151

Huff, K. D. (2026). Foreword: Global Need for Nuclear Energy. In New Directions in Nuclear Energy: Innovation and Opportunities in Fission and Fusion for Global Decarbonization (pp. xiii-xiv). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-33471-9.06001-9

Fang, M., Huff, K., Kozlowski, T., Stubbins, J. F., Vergari, L., & Di Fulvio, A. (2025). EINSTEIN: Enhanced integrated nuclear systems for transmutation and efficient isolation of nuclides. In N. J. Cherepy, M. Fiederle, & R. B. James (Eds.), Hard X-Ray, Gamma-Ray, and Neutron Detector Physics XXVII Article 136210G (Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering; Vol. 13621). SPIE. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3067982

Huff, K. (2025). Taking nuclear energy to the Moon. Science, 389(6763), 859. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aeb6479

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