Billy Koen
Billy Vaughn Koen was an American nuclear and chemical engineer, author and academic who was a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, where he taught for over 41 years.
Life and research
Billy Koen was born on May 2, 1938. He received a BA in Chemistry and BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and Diplôme d'Ingénieur en Génie Atomique from the Institut national des sciences et techniques nucléaires, Saclay, France. He received his MS and ScD in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.He was a consultant to the French Atomic Energy Commission. Billy Koen was a visiting professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (東京工業大学). He was a fellow of the American Nuclear Society. Koen held numerous offices in the American Society for Engineering Education, including vice-president for Public Affairs. Koen was a, and received several awards including the for innovation, the for service to engineering education, and the IEEE Centennial Medal.
Koen died on October 9, 2025, at the age of 87.
Selected publications
In nuclear engineering and artificial intelligence, Koen pioneered the use of AI in solving complex reactor safety issues and oversaw the research of a large number of graduate students. Representative publications:- Hansen, K.F., Koen, B.V., Little, W.W., "Stable Numerical Solutions of the Reactor Kinetics Equations, ".
- Koen, B.V., "Méthodes Nouvelles Pour L'Evaluation de la Fiabilité: Reconnaissance des Formes," Commissariat à L'Energie Atomique, Rapport CEA-4368, Juin, 1972,.
- Macdonald, J.L., Koen, B.V., "Application of Artificial Intelligence Techniques to Digital Computer Control of Nuclear Reactors,"
- Koen, B.V., "Self-Paced Instruction for Engineering Students,"
- Koen, Billy V., "," Event 1725, American Society for Engineering Education Annual Meeting, June 19–22, 1972.
- Koen, Billy V., Heger, A. Sharif, "Evaluation of an Introductory Self-Paced Nuclear Course - Twenty Two Years Later," Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, June 20–24, 1993.
- Koen, B.V., "Creation of a Sense of 'Presence' in a Web-Based Course: The Search for Mark Hopkins' Log in a Digital World," Invited Paper for Special Issue of IEEE Transactions on Education on Web-Based Instruction, November, 2005, Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 599–604.
- Koen, B.V., "Engineering Method,", J. Britt Holbrook and Carl Mitcham, editors, Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference, 2015. Vol. 2, pp. 90–92.
- Koen, B.V., "Toward a Definition of the Engineering Method," Proceedings of the ASEE-IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Oct. 3–5, 1984, Philadelphia, Pa., pp. 544–549.
- Koen, B.V., "The Engineering Method and Its Implications for Scientific, Philosophical, and Universal Methods,", vol. 92, no. 3, essay 3, July 2009.
- Koen, B.V., "An Engineer's Quest for Universal Method,", June 3–4, 2005, Boxmeer, The Netherlands, sponsored by the Philosophy and Ethics of Technology Department, Technical University of Eindhoven, Netherlands.
In popular culture
Koen was the subject of "KOENTMND", an internet meme, or "fad", that prominently featured recordings from Koen's lectures at The University of Texas at Austin. The meme gained popularity in 2006, after one of Koen's students posted an audio recording of him to YTMND, an internet meme community, saying,Can you believe it? You've already finished C. Do you think you can do MATLAB?
Books
- Koen, Billy Vaughn,, Oxford University Press, March, 2003.
- Koen, Billy V. and Shimizu, Yasutaka, Heuristics for Internationally Distributed Collaboration Between Japan and the U.S.: A User's Manual, 国 際 的 に 拡 充 さ れ た 共 同 活 動 の 体 得 則 実 践 者 マ ニ ュ ア ル, The University of Texas at Austin, 2001.
- Koen, Billy V., El Método De Ingeniería, Universidad del Valle, Colombia, Presentacion a la Edicion Especial de, September 19–22, 2000, Cartagena, Colombia.
- Koen, B.V., Definition of the Engineering Method, monograph of the American Society for Engineering Education, 1985. +AND+