Shikhar Kumar
Principal Nuclear Engineer at Argonne National Laboratory
Greater Boston United States
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolShikhar Kumar is a Principal Nuclear Engineer at Argonne National Laboratory with a decade of experience bridging computational nuclear science and practical reactor engineering. He holds a PhD from MIT in Computational Nuclear Science and Engineering and has led research and development efforts in multiphysics simulation, meshing, and reactor workflows. An active open-source contributor, he has extended the C API and Python bindings for the widely used OpenMC Monte Carlo code and improved core/pin mesh generation in the MOOSE framework, reflecting a focus on simulation fidelity and usability. His background spans academia and industry, including leadership in MIT Driverless computer vision and early roles in financial technology, signaling a rare blend of numerical rigor, software craftsmanship, and cross-domain problem solving. Colleagues rely on him for turning advanced simulation requirements into tested, documented code and reproducible workflows that accelerate reactor analysis. He is based in Greater Boston and combines deep technical expertise with a practical orientation toward deployable scientific software.
10 years of coding experience
9 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Computational Nuclear Science and Engineering, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Computational Nuclear Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyBachelor of Science - BS, Operations Research: Financial Engineering, Bachelor of Science - BS, Operations Research: Financial Engineering at Columbia University in the City of New York
Github Skills (15)
simulations10
simulation10
mesh10
nucleo10
computational-physics10
c-language10
capi10
cprogramming-language10
monte-carlo10
openmc10
python9
f9
el9
finite-element-analysis9
unit-testing8
Programming languages (6)
Github contributions (5)
idaholab/moose
Apr 2022 - Jan 2023
Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:294 reviews, 13 commits, 27 PRs in 9 months
Contributions summary:Shikhar primarily worked on the `moose` repository, focused on the `reactor` module, which is part of a multiphysics simulation environment. Their contributions involved modifying the `CoreMeshGenerator` and `PinMeshGenerator` to improve the assembly structure and boundary handling. These changes include adding logic for copying sidesets in the core mesh generator, updating tests, and adding documentation for the homogenized assembly meshes. The user demonstrated expertise in meshing and reactor physics workflows.
pythonfinite-element-analysisfemparallelmultiphysics
openmc-dev/openmc
Jun 2020 - Jun 2020
OpenMC Monte Carlo Code
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:7 reviews, 8 commits, 17 PRs in 9 days
Contributions summary:Shikhar's primary contributions involve extending the C API of the OpenMC Monte Carlo code and updating corresponding Python bindings. They added functionality to set and retrieve batch parameters, including the number of batches and maximum number of batches, which are crucial for simulation control. The user also updated the documentation and unit tests to reflect these changes, ensuring proper usage of the new API features. These updates indicate a focus on enhancing the core functionality and usability of the OpenMC library.
computational-physicsnuclear-energyopenmcnuclear-fusionnuclear-engineering
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