Dr. Han Gyu Joo, President of Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), received the 2023 Outstanding Nuclear Engineer (ONE) Award from Purdue University on November 15, 2023. 

The ONE award is an award presented by the School of Nuclear Engineering of Purdue University since 2017 to the alumni who had made outstanding scholarly accomplishments, visionary leadership and remarkable contributions to nuclear engineering.  

Dr. Joo was recognized not only by his academic accomplishments but also by his leadership in the nuclear power sector. In 1996, he developed the PARCS (Purdue Advanced Reactor Core Simulator) code which is being used worldwide through the framework of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the United States. Before he moved to Seoul National University(SNU) in 2004, he had led the KAERI’s neutronics code development including the Numerical Nuclear Reactor code DeCART. As a Professor of nuclear engineering at SNU, he made significant contributions to the advancement of computational reactor physics. He also contributed to the right establishment of the Korean nuclear power policy.

As the ONE award recipient, Dr. Joo delivered a special lecture to the professors and the graduate and undergraduate students of nuclear engineering on the topic of virtual reactors for advanced reactor development.