At the university, he combined teaching and scientific work in the field of non-destructive testing, ultrasonic tomography, materials science, safety and non-proliferation of nuclear materials. He has developed a technology for control of the integrity and authenticity of containers with nuclear materials and waste through a welded seam (for this project he received a medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences), as well as an ultrasonic flaw detector in a new configuration. It is a robotic analogue of ultrasound for metal parts that allows detection of the smallest defects in materials.
At the university, he went from being a student, a postgraduate student, and a laboratory technician to the head of the laboratory. Then he headed a large educational and research unit at TPU called the Engineering School of Non-Destructive Testing.
The team under his leadership participates in international scientific projects at the megascience level. Among these projects is the largest ultrasonic flaw detector in Russia for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) being built in France.
Dmitry Sednev led the work to create an experimental site for advanced non-destructive testing at Tomsk Electromechanical Plant (TEMP). It was opened in the spring of 2021.
He has been being Acting Rector of the university since July 6, 2021. Under his leadership, the university team won the selection in two national programs of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science. These are “Priority 2030”, wh ere TPU was included in the first group of the “Research Leadership” track with the maximum amount of the grant, and “Advanced Engineering Schools” (AES). Now TPU is creating an “Intelligent Energy Systems” AES. Tomsk Polytechnic University will also lead the work on creating a start-up studio in Tomsk as part of the federal project “University Technological Entrepreneurship Platform”.