Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2017
  • B.S., Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 2012
Licenses & Certifications
  • Professional Engineer Mechanical, California, #41768
  • Professional Engineer, North Carolina, #059586
  • Blasting Certificate of Competency (MA)
  • Certified Fire and Explosion Investigator (CFEI)
  • Certified Vehicle Fire Investigator (CVFI)
Professional Honors
  • Kavanaugh Translational Innovation Fellowship, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2021
  • George and Marie Vergottis Presidential Fellowship, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012-2013
  • Onassis Foundation Scholar, 2012-2016
  • National Hellenic Research Foundation Scholar, 2007-2012
Professional Affiliations
  • National Association of Fire Investigators (NAFI)
  • National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
  • International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
  • - Member of the ISO Technical Committee 197, Working Group 34 that develops the ISO 22734 Standard, “Hydrogen generators using water electrolysis - Part 1: General requirements, test protocols and safety requirements”.
Languages
  • English
  • French (France)
  • Greek

Dr. Dimitrakopoulos has a degree in mechanical engineering and works in Exponent's Thermal Science Practice. His core areas of expertise include fluid mechanics, heat-transfer, mass-transfer, combustion, thermodynamics, reaction kinetics, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), energy storage, electrochemistry, catalysis, electrocatalysis, material synthesis and characterization. He consults on the following areas:

  1.  Fire and explosion investigations (determination of origin and cause, vehicle fires)
  2. Consumer products (performance and safety evaluation of prototype and in-production devices, DFMEAs, CPSC matters, etc.)
  3. Combustible dust matters (inspection of facilities handling/producing combustible dust, combustible dust testing based on applicable standards, Dust Hazard Analysis (DHA) etc.)
  4. Green hydrogen and ammonia (fuel cells and electrolyzers)
  5. Energy storage (li-ion battery failure investigation, cell-, pack-, and device-level thermal runaway testing and evaluation, etc.)
  6. HVAC system review and analysis
  7. Burn injury matters
  8. Intellectual property cases
  9. Catalysis and catalytic reactors
  10. Exhaust aftertreatment and emissions systems
  11. Oil and gas (reactor design and characterization, system safety, process evaluation, catalyst characterization etc.)

Prior to joining Exponent, Dr. Dimitrakopoulos was a Ph.D. candidate in the Reacting Gas Dynamics Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Mechanical Engineering. He obtained his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 2017, with a thesis in Mechanical Engineering and Computation. During his Ph.D., he investigated the production of added-value chemicals using ceramic membrane reactors. Through a novel experimental setup, transport and kinetic parameters were obtained and used to provide insight into the material properties and to develop 3D reactive flow CFD algorithms that would assist the design of optimized reactor modules for the conversion processes of interest. In 2014, Dr. Dimitrakopoulos completed a 3-month internship program at ExxonMobil's Upstream Research Company in Houston, TX, working on the development of computational models for process stratigraphy applications.

After his graduation, Dr. Dimitrakopoulos remained at MIT as a post-doctor and was later promoted to a Research Scientist. During this period, he worked on improving the performance of solid oxide fuel/electrolysis cells for green hydrogen and ammonia production by careful tuning of material properties. His research was both applied and fundamental with the aim to translate advances in the science of ceramic materials into real solid oxide cell devices. To this end, he investigated the concept of catalyst exsolution to produce nanoparticle-sized, well dispersed, and long-term stable catalysts on the surface of perovskite oxide electrodes grown in-situ from the bulk of the material. He also experimented with proton-conducting electrolysis cells toward the production of green/blue ammonia from steam/methane and renewable electricity.

In 2021, Dr. Dimitrakopoulos was awarded the prestigious Kavanaugh Fellowship offered by the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at MIT. As a Kavanaugh Fellow, he investigated the oxidative coupling of methane to produce ethylene using thermochemical and electrochemical routes. He also conducted techno-economic analyses to evaluate the conditions under which these technologies could compete with the current industrial ethylene production routes (steam cracking of ethane or naphtha).

Dr. Dimitrakopoulos has extensive experience in synthesizing materials from raw precursors as well as characterizing materials using ex-situ (XRD, SEM, TEM, EDS, BET, XPS, XAS, TGA, DSC etc.) and in-situ (NAP-XPS etc.) techniques. He is an expert in the sintering of ceramic materials, the fabrication and testing of lab-scale solid oxide cells and the manufacturing of large-scale ceramic oxide devices. He is proficient in electrochemical characterization methods (I-V, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, battery cycling etc.) and the analysis/quantification of gaseous mixtures.