Brief CV
Dr. Kari Törrönen received his Dipl.Eng. and D.Tech. degrees in Physical Metallurgy from the Helsinki University of Technology. He started his career in 1970 in the Reactor Materials Group at the Ministry of Trade and Industry in Finland and was transferred to the Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) in 1974, where he held various research and managerial positions. In 1988, Dr. Törrönen was nominated as Director (with the title of Professor) of the Metals Laboratory which, in 1993 in the restructuring of VTT, was renamed Department of Materials and Structural Integrity Research.
In 1995 Dr. Törrönen was elected and instated as Director of the Institute for Advanced Materials, Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission located in Petten, the Netherlands, and in Ispra, Italy. The technical areas addressed included power production (nuclear including fusion, advanced coal fired, renewable), transport, petrochemical, environmental protection, and health care (especially nuclear medicine including BNCT).
In 2001, the institute’s focus was directed on issues related to the security of energy supply and to sustainable and safe energy production; the institute was consequently renamed the Institute for Energy. Its activities focussed on the safety of existing and future innovative nuclear power plants, nuclear waste storage, biomass and waste, hydrogen and fuel cells, and energy information evaluation and verification. The institute has a number of state-of-the-art facilities including High Flux Reactor, Plant Simulation Testing Laboratory, Hydrogen Storage Laboratory and Fuel Cell Testing Laboratory. Dr. Törrönen retired from the JRC on May 16, 2007.
Today Dr. Törrönen works as a senior consultant and managing director through his company EnergyWave Ltd. Its main active customers include VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO). EnergyWave Ltd is a member of FinNuclear, the Finnish Nuclear Suppliers’ Group and Fuel Cell Finland, Industry Group. Typical assignments of EnergyWave Ltd include fact finding, feasibility studies, expert analysis, reconciliation, generation of collaboration, and marketing.
Dr. Kari Törrönen is author or co-author of about 300 scientific publications and reports. He is/has been a member and chairman of many international committees; the most recent ones include the Advisory Council of the European Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Platform, the Executive Committee of the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy. He was a member of the board of Boneca Corporation, a Finnish enterprise developing novel and innovative cancer treatments until February 2012.
Dr. Törrönen has participated in evaluation teams concerning the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Structural Integrity Programmes in 1998, the National Research Institute of Metals (Japan) in 2000, Paul Scherrer Institute’s (PSI, Switzerland) Energy Programme in 2001, and Energy Research in Finland in 2006.
In 1987, he was elected as a member of the Academy for Technical Sciences in Finland. He is also a senior lecturer (docent) in metals technology at the Aalto University, School of Engineering, a position he has held since 1985. Dr. Törrönen has received the following honors: Medaille Charles Eichner, Société de Métallurgie et de Matériaux (France), and Knight, First Class, of the Order of the White Rose of Finland.