Bio

Patrick O'Neal earned his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Texas A&M University in May of 2024. and his M.S. degree in nuclear engineering from Texas A&M University in Spring 2020. For his Master's project, he worked with Dr. Chirayath on a project to diagnose vulnerabilities in the thorium fuel cycle. This work involves analyzing the ability of different facilities to covertly produce weapons usable uranium-233 and devising safeguards solutions to prevent against this eventuality. For his Ph.D., he worked on a machine-learning-based nuclear forensics methodology. He has previously conducted graduate research developing a methodology to perform combined analysis of nuclear facility security and safety risk for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters, and mentored a team of undergraduate students developing a remote holdup monitor for the Y-12 National Security Complex. O'Neal graduated cum laude with his B.S in nuclear engineering from Texas A&M University in May of 2016. After graduation, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher with NSSPI before joining Argonne National Laboratory.