Prof. Anna Erickson

Anna Erickson is a leader of Advanced Laboratory for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Safety and an Assistant Professor of Nuclear & Radiological Engineering in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. She received her MS and PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was a NNSA’s Stewardship Science Graduate Fellow. Prior to her position at Georgia Tech, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Advanced Detectors Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  Dr. Erickson's research focuses on advanced nuclear reactor design and nuclear security and nonproliferation, connected by the current need for proliferation-resistant nuclear power. Her group is involved in large-array imaging applications for homeland security, antineutrino detection and nuclearized robotics for safety and security applications. 

The research interests of Dr. Erickson focus on nuclear reactor design and national security, connected by the current need for proliferation-resistant nuclear power. She has been involved with fast reactor design including primary and secondary thermal hydraulic systems using RELAP5/ATHENA code, core design and optimization using REBUS-3 suite of codes, and accident analysis.

Since one of the major obstacles to expanding the nuclear power today, especially fast breeder reactors, is considered to be the concern of proliferation, her research also involves design, development and analysis of non-traditional nuclear security detectors. At LLNL, her focus is on sensitivity limits of antineutrino detection as applied to nuclear reactor monitoring. Often, detection and monitoring of special nuclear materials requires extensive knowledge of reactor design and principles of operation, as in case of using antineutrinos produced in a reactor to monitor its fuel cycle. In addition, reactor design could benefit from knowledge of potential proliferation risks.