Overview of NEA activities in nuclear science and education

Il 20 maggio alle ore 16, Di Trapani, Costa, Foligno, Grassi, NEA (France), terranno il seminario "H2 explosions - Risk and mitigation. Assesment for a safer H2 society".

L'incontro fa parte del ciclo "Past-students and Expert Webinars in Nuclear Engineering"
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Dr Antonella di Trapani is Senior Analyst at the NEA where she is leading the Education, Training and Knowledge Management activities in particular the Nuclear Education, Skills and Technology (NEST) Framework and the Global Forum on Nuclear Education, Science, Technology and Policy. Before joining the NEA in July 2018, she was Team Leader for Science Policy Advice within the European Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism. Prior to that, she has held several positions as Programme Manager and Head of International Cooperation, at the G20 Wheat Initiative, European Commission European Research Council and European Science Foundation, managing large scale collaborative projects, capacity building networks and the largest grants in Europe. In addition, she also worked for the private sector as Research Scientist in Johnson Matthey Technology Centre.  She was awarded two EC Marie Curie Fellowships to carry out her PhD and PostDoc, and she was Chair of the Marie Curie Fellows Association, the largest Fellows’ network in Europe. She also founded and chaired the Women in Science Working Group. She is also co-founder and former Vice-Chair of the Gender in Science for Mobile Scientists of the Marie Curie Alumni Association.  Dr di Trapani is an Italian national and holds a MSc in Chemistry from the University of Palermo (Italy) during which she was awarded an Erasmus Fellowship at University College London (UK), a PhD in Chemistry and a PostGraduate Diploma in Quality Improvement from Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), a MSc in Science Communication and Journalism from University of Ferrara (Italy), and a PostGraduate Diploma in International Development from London School of Economics and Social Sciences (UK).

Dr Davide Costa joined the NEA in 2014, first within the NEA Data Bank, and since 2017, in the NEA Division of Nuclear Science.

At the NEA Data Bank, he worked on the Thermochemical Database (TDB) project, addressing the review, assessment and selection of high-quality thermochemical data of interest for the safety assessment of deep geological repositories for high-level radioactive waste. His duties included scientific support activities, as well as the design and development of a new electronic database for the collection and preservation of selected data. In the NEA Division of Nuclear Science, he is now responsible for nuclear materials-related activities, covering both structural materials and fuel materials. In this role, he serves as the Technical secretary of the NEA Working Party on Multiscale Modelling of Fuels and Structural Materials for Nuclear Systems (WPMM). Under the supervision of the NEA Nuclear Science Committee, he is also co-ordinating the creation of a new working party on nuclear materials with an expanded scope to go beyond nuclear materials modelling and address the experimental characterisation, data review, assessment and collection of fuel materials and structural materials.

Dr Costa co-ordinates two international joint projects: the Thermodynamics of Advanced Fuels – International Database (TAF-ID) project and the Thermodynamic Characterisation of Fuel Debris and Fission Products Based on Scenario Analysis of Severe Accident Progression at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (TCOFF) project. His is responsible for multilateral negotiations to build project membership, and supervises the project agreement and preparation of the programmes of work for these projects. Throughout implementation of the projects, he also oversees the co-ordination of  expert activities, financial matters and procurement, and he supervises R&D contracts established within the projects.

Dr Costa was the Secretary of the Expert Group on Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) for Light Water Reactors (EGATFL) until the completion of its activities in 2019 and the publication of a state-of-the-art report addressing ATF performance in normal operation and accident conditions, and reviewing available data on the compatibility of different ATF fuels and cladding concepts.

Since 2021, he has been part of the Generation IV International Forum Technical secretariat team, working for the Task Force on Advanced Manufacturing and Materials Engineering. He is also contributing to the establishment of a task force on the non-electric application of nuclear heat, which aims to explore and illustrate opportunities, advantages and hurdles arising from potential combinations of GIF technologies with non-electric applications of nuclear heat.

Dr Costa has extensive experience in the nuclear energy sector at the international level. He worked in R&D at EDF for three years, contributing to the modelling of the thermal ageing of austenitic-ferritic steels used for the primary circuit of French PWRs. The activities he is involved in at the NEA span from nuclear materials and fuels modelling to thermodynamic modelling of fuel behaviour under normal operation and accident conditions. He is also extensively involved in post-Fukushima activities, particularly in the Fukushima-Daiichi accident progression evaluation from the materials science perspective (analysis of materials interactions occurring during the accident and their consequences on the accident progression and the source term).

An Italian national, he holds a PhD in nuclear materials modelling from Lille University, with a thesis on the “Modelling of the thermal evolution of Fe-Cr alloys using an atomistic kinetic Monte Carlo approach based on Density Functional Theory”. He graduated a theoretical physicist at the École Normale Supérieur de Lyon (France). Dr Costa is an enthusiastic and passionate team worker, always looking for opportunities to create connections among communities from contiguous nuclear research areas so as to deliver rich multi-dimensional outputs in support of member country decision-making processes. 

Dr Daniela Foligno is a Junior Scientist at the NEA Data Bank, where she is responsible for the Joint European Fission and Fusion (JEFF) Project. Before joining the NEA in January 2020, she carried out her PhD at CEA Cadarache (France) on the “New evaluation of delayed-neutron data and associated covariances”. During her last year, she became president of the Association des thèsards de Cadarache (ASTHEC). In 2016, Dr Foligno received the European Master of Science in Nuclear Engineering (EMSNE) Certification. Prior to that, she was awarded a Felloship by the KIC InnoEnergy project to attend the European Master in Innovation of Nuclear Energy (EMINE) Master Program, one year at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, and one year at the Institut national des sciences et technologies nucléaires in France. At the same time, she attended a summer school on Nuclear Nonproliferation, organized by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Education and Research Center (NEREC) in South Korea. Dr Foligno has a bachelor in Energy Engineering obtained at the Politecnico di Torino in Italy. 

Dr Gabriele Grassi is a Nuclear Scientist at the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) where he co-ordinates and supports work on scientific issues related to advanced nuclear fuel cycles, including fuel cycle scenarios, innovative fuels and materials, separation chemistry, waste disposal and coolant technologies.

He has extensive experience in nuclear energy, spanning a wide range of technical areas and different roles in engineering, R&D and innovation. Prior to joining the NEA, he worked at Orano as R&D Manager for the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. He co-ordinated cross-cutting and multi-disciplinary activities in support of used fuel reprocessing, plutonium recycling and waste management, in continual interaction with experts from industry and research bodies, as well as from business, legal and strategy teams. He was then involved in exploring innovative solutions for the nuclear fuel cycle, focusing on advanced nuclear systems as well as advanced options for fuel reprocessing. Previously, he worked at Framatome as a core design engineer and a technical leader for light water reactor projects.

He completed his PhD at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in neutronics and applied mathematics. He also holds a MSc in nuclear engineering from Politecnico di Torino (Italy) and a MSc in energy systems, with a specialisation in reactor physics, from the Université d’Evry Val d’Essonne/National Institute for Nuclear Science and Technology (INSTN, France).