Dr. Kenneth Allen

Professor Ken Allen, Ph.D., PE, is a Professor of Nuclear Engineering with the Department of Physics & Nuclear Engineering at the United States Military Academy, West Point. He served as an aviation officer in B Co., 3-23 Av Hunter Army Airfield, GA, as a UH-60 helicopter flight platoon leader and an assistant battalion operations officer. Dr. Allen served as a Company Commander for A Co. 78th Aviation Bn, Camp Zama, Japan. 

He was an assistant professor in the West Point Department of Physics from 2003-06, teaching core physics and nuclear engineering. After leaving the department, he served two years as a reactor operator supervisor and an NRC-licensed senior reactor operator for the TRIGA research reactor at the Armed Forces Radiobiological Research Institute, Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD.

In 2008, he was selected to be an Academy Professor in the Department of Physics & Nuclear Engineering. In 2011, Dr. Allen completed his Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina, where his dissertation research involved designing an innovative sodium-cooled fast reactor for the destruction of minor actinides in used nuclear fuel. 

In 2017, he retired from the Army and was selected to be a civilian associate professor in the Department of Physics & Nuclear Engineering. In the spring of 2020, the USMA Academic Board approved the recommendation from the Credential and Promotion Committee to promote Dr. Allen to Professor of Nuclear Engineering. 

Dr. Allen is a commissioner for ABET and a member of the American Nuclear Society, American Society of Engineering Education, Society of Physics Students, Phi Kappa Phi, and Tau Beta Pi. In addition to teaching, he is an avid Ironman triathlete and the Officer in Charge for the USMA triathlon club.