Areg Danagoulian joined the MIT faculty as an Assistant Professor in July 2014. He received his S.B. degree in physics from MIT. He did his PhD research in Experimental Nuclear Physics at UIUC. His thesis experiment took place at Jefferson Lab and studied real Compton scattering on the proton at 2-6 GeV, allowing to probe the proton’s internal structure and how it couples to external excitations. After his PhD, Areg worked at Los Alamos as a postdoctoral researcher, and as a senior scientist at Passport Systems, Inc.
Areg’s current research interests focus on the field on nuclear security. This involves such areas as nuclear nonproliferation, technologies for treaty verification, nuclear safeguards, and nuclear cargo security. Specific research areas include: development of technologies for treaty verification purposes; research in monochromatic, tunable sources which can be applied to active interrogation of cargoes. Other areas of interest involve nuclear forensics and development of new detection concepts. As part of his involvement in CVT, Areg will work on the development of a new approach to warhead authentication which will apply reference foil nuclear resonance fluorescence (NRF) techniques to achieve a zero knowledge protocol.