Prof. Igor Jovanovic

Dr. Jovanovic is a Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences and Applied Physics at the University of Michigan, Director of Neutron Science Laboratory (NSL) and Applied Nuclear Science Instrumentation Laboratory (ANSIL), and the leader of the Applied Nuclear Science Group. He also serves as the Chair of the Graduate Program in Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences.

Dr. Jovanovic received his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2001. He held a staff physicist position at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and was also a professor at Purdue and Penn State University. His research focuses on the applications of nuclear science as well as laser science and technology to nuclear security and nonproliferation and has been supported by DOE, NSF, DHS, DARPA, DTRA, and NRC. He serves as an Associate Director for National Laboratories in the NNSA Consortium for Monitoring, Technology, and Verification and the thrust area lead for Nuclear and Particle Physics.

Dr. Jovanovic’s current research in antineutrino space includes the development of liquid noble element detectors for coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering. He is a member of the AIT-WATCHMAN collaboration, working towards the construction of large water Cherenkov detectors for remote reactor discovery and monitoring. His group has also developed novel heterogenous composite radiation detectors and used them to demonstrate multi-particle, multiple-monoenergetic spectroscopic radiography and new delayed neutron signature detection using ion-driven nuclear reactions as a new method for active interrogation.   

In the area of laser science and technology, Dr. Jovanovic’s group is working on novel methods for detection of proliferation-relevant materials over long distances using ultrafast lasers and on simulating extreme environments using laser-produced plasmas. Other research activities in his group include novel ultrafast radiation sources based on intense laser-matter interactions and ranging from long-wave infrared to gamma rays and neutrons. As a member of the High-Field Science Group in the Michigan’s Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science he is working to establish the NSF-supported 3-petawatt ZEUS user facility, the highest power laser in the United States.

Dr. Jovanovic is a recipient of the DARPA Young Faculty Award, the DHS Nuclear Forensics Junior Faculty Award, and is a Fellow of the Optical Society (OSA).

Link: Applied Nuclear Science Group, http://ansg.engin.umich.edu