Prior to 2013, he served in a variety of management and technical R&D roles at ORNL including Chief Scientist of the Nuclear Science and Engineering Directorate and director of the Materials Science and Technology Division. Much of his research has utilized materials science to explore fundamental physical phenomena that are important for advanced nuclear energy applications, focusing on microstructure-property relationships. His research interests include deformation and fracture mechanisms in structural materials, advanced manufacturing, and investigation of radiation effects in ceramics, fuel systems, and metallic alloys for fission and fusion energy systems. He received a BS and PhD in Nuclear Engineering and an MS in Materials Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and serves on the National Academies’ National Materials & Manufacturing Board.

He is the ORNL program manager for the Advanced Fuels Campaign of Fuel Cycle R&D and Nuclear Science User Facilities programs in US DOE Office of Nuclear Energy. He received his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering under supervision of Donald Olander from University of California, Berkeley in 2010. His research focuses on fundamental aspects of nuclear fuel behavior under normal and transient operating conditions and development of advanced nuclear fuels. His main areas of interest are advanced fuel fabrication, in-pile testing and post-irradiation characterization of fuel constituents, severe accident testing of fission reactor components, and integral fuel behavior modeling.

His primary research interests are in computational thermodynamics, nuclear fuel engineering, multi-scale multi-physics modelling & simulation of various materials, and experimental & computational fluid dynamics. Dr. Piro received a  BSc.Eng. and MSc.Eng. in Mechanical & Materials Engineering from Queens University and a PhD in& Nuclear Engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada in conjunction with the Computer Science & Mathematics Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). After completing his graduate studies, he spent two years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Materials Science & Technology Division at ORNL. He has also consulted in both nuclear and aerospace sectors for industry and government in Canada and the USA.