Leonel Lagos Ph.D.

Bio

Dr. Leonel E. Lagos, is the Director of Research at Florida International University’s Applied Research Center (FIU-ARC) and Principal Investigator of a multi year, multi million dollar Cooperative Agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and FIU in support of DOE’s environmental restoration program. Dr. Lagos is also the Principal Investigator for the Department of Defense’s Cybersecurity technology development program at FIU. Dr. Lagos is founder and Director of the DOE-FIU Science and Technology Workforce Development Program (http://fellows.fiu.edu ) and Department of Defense Cyber Fellows Program. As director to these prestigious signature workforce development programs, Dr. Lagos trains and mentors FIU science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) minority students and provides them with “hands-on” applied research, internships, professional development, and employment opportunities. During his tenure at FIU-ARC, Dr. Lagos has developed robotics and remote systems for the treatment of radiological contaminated surfaces and disposal of nuclear waste. His research has resulted in U.S. and European patents of a Mobile Integrated Piping Decontamination and Characterization System. He has developed and implemented innovative methods for the environmental cleanup of DOE radiological contaminated facilities and conducted over 200 technology demonstrations, evaluations, and deployments at ARC Large Scale Testing Facility, DOE sites, and commercial nuclear facilities. Dr. Lagos has been instrumental in developing the Knowledge Management Information Tool (KM-IT) for capturing, preservation, and dissemination of deactivation and decommissioning (D&D) technologies, lessons learned, best practices, and D&D knowledge in general.  He is also the current Chair of the American Nuclear Society’s Robotics and Remote Systems Division and a PAC (Program Advisory Committee) member for the Waste Management Symposia, a premier international conference for the management of radioactive waste. Dr. Lagos is also an adjunct professor affiliated with FIU's Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department and a Graduate Faculty under FIU's Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.