members.yaml

principal_investigator:
  - name: Egemen Kolemen
    title: Principal Investigator
    description: Egemen Kolemen is an Associate Professor at Princeton
      University's Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering jointly
      appointed with the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment
      and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). He is
      the director of the Program in Sustainable Energy, recipient
      of the David J. Rose Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award
      and the American Nuclear Society's Technical Accomplishment
      Award, and an ITER Scientist Fellow. His research combines
      engineering and physics analysis to enable economically
      feasible fusion reactors. He currently leads research on
      machine learning, real-time diagnostics and control at KSTAR,
      NSTX-U, and DIII-D. He directs liquid metal divertor and
      low temperature diagnostics labs. On the theoretical side,
      his group develops software for stellarator optimization
      and economical analysis of fusion reactors.
    emails:
      - ekolemen@pppl.gov
      - ekolemen@princeton.edu
    cv_file_name: Egemen_Kolemen_CV.pdf
    photo_file_name: Egemen_Kolemen.png
    orcid_id: 0000-0003-4212-3247
    google_scholar_url: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-GHcoUYAAAAJ&hl=en

research_staff:
  - name: Azarakhsh Jalalvand
    title: Research Scientist
    description: Azarakhsh Jalalvand is a Research Scholar in
      Princeton University with a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering
      from Ghent University (Belgium). His research focuses on
      Artificial Intelligence, signal processing and data-driven
      discovery research tracks including audio, visual and radar
      data analysis as well as multi-sensor signal processing
      for variety of applications such as object recognition,
      surveillance, predictive maintenance and anomaly detection.
      He investigates real-time, robust and adaptive data-driven
      models for condition monitoring and plasma control in the
      magnetic confinement devices to produce controlled thermonuclear
      fusion power.
    photo_file_name: Azarakhsh_Jalalvand.jpg

  - name: SangKyeun Kim
    title: Research Scientist
    description: SangKyeun Kim is a staff research scientist at
      the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) with a focus
      on plasma physics and fusion research. His expertise encompasses
      a wide range of areas including linear PBM stability analysis
      using MISHKA and ELITE tools, nonlinear physics studies
      with the JOREK 3D MHD code, and the development of the kinetic-EFIT
      reconstruction system for the KSTAR tokamak. Currently,
      SangKyeun is engaged in ML-related plasma control at DIII-D,
      where he explores the utilization of machine learning techniques
      for 3D control, ELM suppression, and boundary control, contributing
      to advancements in these fields.
    photo_file_name: SangKyeun_Kim.jpg

  - name: CheolSik Byun
    title: Postdoctoral Researcher
    description: CheolSik Byun is a postdoctoral researcher with
      expertise in simulation and experiment of particle transport.
      During his doctoral studies at Seoul National University,
      he focused on interpretative/predictive simulations and
      experiments for hybrid scenarios in  KSTAR. He also conducted
      research on particle transport driven by turbulence using
      perturbative analysis in KSTAR experiments. Currently, his
      primary research focus involves implementing various controllers,
      such as RMP-driven ELM suppression and radiation power control,
      utilizing RT-bolometer to manage heat loads on the plasma-facing
      components in KSTAR.
    photo_file_name: CheolSik_Byun.jpg

  - name: Alvin Garcia
    title: Postdoctoral Researcher
    description: Alvin Garcia is an ORISE FES Postdoctoral Research
      Fellow experienced in computational modelling, analysis
      and techniques that can be used to study mission critical
      topics in fusion energy. Prior to joining the Plasma Control
      Group at Princeton University, he completed his PhD in Physics
      at the University of California, Irvine on projects related
      to Spin Polarized Fuel and Artificial Intelligence using
      data from the DIII-D National Fusion Facility. He plans
      to design, propose, and execute experiments aimed at controlling
      dangerous Alfvén eigenmodes on DIII-D as a contributing
      member of the Plasma Control Group.
    photo_file_name: Alvin_Garcia.jpg

  - name: Yufan Xu
    title: Postdoctoral Researcher
    description: Yufan Xu is a postdoc at PPPL specialized in
      liquid metal magnetohydrodynamics, geophysical and astrophysical
      turbulence, and planetary and stellar dynamos. He received
      his PhD in geophysics and space physics at University of
      California, Los Angeles in 2023, on the experimental investigation
      of the heat and momentum transfer in liquid gallium rotating
      and non-rotating magnetoconvection, complemented with theoretical
      and numerical analyses. In Princeton, his focus is developing
      a flowing liquid lithium facility at PPPL for testing and
      validating liquid metal plasma facing component designs
      for fusion devices.
    photo_file_name: Yufan_Xu.jpg

  - name: Rahul Gaur
    title: Postdoctoral Researcher
    description: Rahul Gaur is a postdoctoral researcher working
      with the DESC optimization code. He is interested in the
      optimization of stellarators against instabilities and turbulent
      transport. He completed his Ph.D. in Physics from the University
      of Maryland, College Park where he investigated the effect
      of ideal MHD and kinetic instabilities on high-beta tokamak
      and stellarator equilibria.
    photo_file_name: Rahul_Gaur.jpg

  - name: Peter Steiner
    title: Postdoctoral Researcher
    description: Peter is a postdoctoral researcher in Princeton
      University with a Ph.D. in Signal Processing and Machine
      Learning from Dresden University of Technology (Germany).
      His research focuses on Artificial and signal processing
      of audio and multi-sensor signals with many application
      from recognition until event detection. He investigates
      data-driven models for plasma control and signal processing
      methods for different plasma diagnostics.
    photo_file_name: Peter_Steiner.jpg

  - name: Max Curie
    title: Postdoctoral Researcher
    description: 'Max Curie is a postdoc in Princeton University.
      He received his Ph.D. in physics in the University of Texas
      at Austin in 2022. His focuses are: (1) End-to-end prediction
      for Tokamak. (2) Signal processing for the spectral diagnostics.
      (3) Design, propose, and conduct experiments in DIII-D (future).'
    photo_file_name: Max_Curie.jpg

  - name: Ricardo Shousha
    title: Postdoctoral Researcher
    description: Ricardo Shousha is a postdoctoral researcher
      specializing in plasma control systems at the Princeton
      Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). He holds a Ph.D. from
      Princeton University’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace
      Engineering, where he focused on advancing plasma control
      techniques deployed on the DIII-D and KSTAR tokamaks. At
      PPPL, Ricardo is developing the plasma control system infrastructure
      for LTX-beta, marking a transition from feedforward to feedback
      control mechanisms in plasma research capabilities for LTX-beta.
      His research interests extend to applying machine learning
      tools in plasma diagnostics and control, including in collaborations
      with teams working on the DIII-D and KSTAR projects.
    emails:
      - rshousha@pppl.gov
      - rshousha@princeton.edu
    photo_file_name: Ricardo_Shousha.png
    google_scholar_url: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HBWNz8UAAAAJ&hl=en
    github_username: rshoushaprinceton
graduate_students:
  - name: Dario Panici
    title: 4th Year Graduate Student
    description: Dario is a 4th-year graduate student in the MAE
      department interested in computational plasma physics, especially
      related to fusion energy. He completed his undergraduate
      in Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at UIUC
      before attending Princeton. Currently, Dario works on code
      development and error analysis of computational stellarator
      equilibria, as well as helical coil design and connections
      between 3D global MHD equilibria and the near-axis expansion.
    photo_file_name: Dario_Panici.jpg

  - name: Francisco Saenz
    title: 4th Year Graduate Student
    description: Francisco is a 4th-year PhD student in the MAE
      department interested in computational/experimental liquid
      metal magnetohydrodynamics, especially related to the design
      of plasma-facing component of fusion systems. His undergraduate
      degree is in Mechanical Engineering from Universidad de
      Costa Rica. Currently, Francisco works on simulations and
      experiments to evaluate the performance of the new liquid
      metal divertor concept called "Divertorlets". Additionally,
      he works on simulations of free-surface liquid metal flows
      for MHD drag calculations.
    photo_file_name: Francisco_Saenz.jpg

  - name: Brian Wynne
    title: 3rd Year Graduate Student
    description: Brian is a 3rd year graduate student in MAE.
      Before joining the Kolemen group, he completed his Bachelor's
      Degree in Chemical Engineering at The Ohio State University.
      Brian works with experiments and simulations on LMX-U (Liquid
      Metal eXperiment Upgrade) at PPPL. He is currently involved
      in testing  the effects of a gradient magnetic field on
      free surface flow, as well as designing a magnetically driven
      centrifuge for lithium hydride separation from liquid lithium.
    photo_file_name: Brian_Wynne.jpg

  - name: Andy Rothstein
    title: 3rd Year Graduate Student
    description: Andy is a 3rd year graduate student in MAE interested
      in data-driven approaches to plasma control. His work involved
      building machine learning models to find correlations between
      tokamak diagnostics and magnetic instabilities to build
      models capable of predicting magnetic instabilities in real-time.
      Before Princeton, he got his Bachelor's Degree in Physics
      from Caltech and while performing research in astrodynamics
      and quantum optics.
    photo_file_name: Andy_Rothstein.jpg

  - name: Jalal Butt
    title: 2nd Year Graduate Student
    description: Jalal studies the 3D field physics of edge-localized
      modes (ELMs) and their control in pursuit of long-pulse
      tokamak operation for KSTAR, ITER and beyond. Before Princeton,
      Jalal graduated from Columbia University, where he contributed
      to the disruption event characterization and forecasting
      code (DECAF), and CCSU. Jalal also worked as a research
      scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on novel satellite
      remote sensing techniques.
    photo_file_name: Jalal _Butt.jpg

  - name: Minseok Kim
    title: 2nd Year Graduate Student
    description: Minseok Kim is a second-year graduate student
      in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He has studied
      electron density profile reconstruction using line-averaged
      density information measured by a Two-Colored Interferometer
      (TCI) and the control of the profile. Another side project
      he has worked on is establishing a DIII-D kinetic profile
      database reconstructed by rtCAKENN (real-time kinetic equilibrium
      reconstruction using a neural network). He got his Bachelor's
      in Physics and Artificial Intelligence at Korea University
      and a Master's in Nuclear and Quantum Engineering at KAIST
      for Nuclear Fusion energy.
    emails:
      - mseokim@princeton.edu
    photo_file_name: Minseok_Kim.jpg
    cv_file_name: Minseok_Kim_CV.pdf
    google_scholar_url: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=TffO2hcAAAAJ
    orcid_id: 0009-0002-1664-6618
  - name: Yigit Gunsur Elmacioglu
    title: 1st Year Graduate Student
    description: Yigit is an incoming PhD student in the Mechanical
      and Aerospace Engineering department. He completed his bachelor's
      degree in Mechanical Engineering along with a double major
      in Physics at Bogazici University. During his undergraduate
      studies, he worked on magnetic guidewire steering in ultrahigh
      magnetic fields and PIC-DSMC implementation of the ion thruster
      grid region. In the Kolemen group, he will work on plasma
      simulations for stellarators.
    photo_file_name: Yigit_Gunsur_Elmacioglu.jpg

  - name: Sina Atalay
    title: 1st Year Graduate Student
    description: Sina is an incoming PhD student in the Mechanical
      and Aerospace Engineering department. He completed his bachelor's
      degree in Mechanical Engineering at Bogazici University
      in Istanbul. Following his undergraduate studies, he worked
      at CERN as a technical student, focusing on modeling and
      simulating the quench of superconducting coils. In his upcoming
      work with the Plasma Control Group, he will concentrate
      on stellarator optimization and superconductivity.
    emails:
      - sina.atalay@princeton.edu
    photo_file_name: Sina_Atalay.jpg
    google_scholar_url: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=F8IyYrQAAAAJ&hl=en
    orcid_id: 0009-0000-4969-8604
    github_username: sinaatalay

  - name: Hiro Farre
    title: 1st Year Graduate Student
    description: Hiro is a 1st year PhD student at the Princeton
      Plasma Physics Laboratory. He completed his master's and
      bachelor's degrees in Physics at the University of Cambridge,
      where he worked on simulating and detecting the Low to High
      Confinement Mode transition in tokamaks. By running HESEL
      simulations and analyzing experimental data from the DIII-D
      and MAST-U tokamaks, he studied the triggers leading to
      High Confinement Mode, a plasma state that is favorable
      for fusion reactors. In the Plasma Control group, he will
      work on plasma profile prediction for real time control
      on the DIII-D and ASDEX-U tokamaks.
    photo_file_name: Hiro_Farre.jpg

  - name: Nathaniel Chen
    title: 1st Year Graduate Student
    description: Nathan is a PhD student in  the Mechanical and
      Aerospace Engineering department. He completed his bachelor's
      degree in Physics and Cognitive Science at the University
      of California, Los Angeles. He works on machine learning
      and diagnostics in the plasma control group.
    photo_file_name: Nathaniel_Chen.jpg

  - name: Kian Orr
    title: 1st Year Graduate Student
    description: Kian is a 1st year PhD student interested in
      computational plasma physics, especially in the context
      of fusion. He went to UCLA for his undergrad in physics
      and subsequently worked at TAE Technologies, where he researched
      particle confinement times with spectroscopy diagnostics.
    photo_file_name: Kian_Orr.jpg

  - name: Josh Josephy-Zack
    title: 1st Year Graduate Student
    description: Josh is a first-year PhD student in Princeton's
      Program in Plasma Physics. He holds a bachelor's degree
      in Physics and Mathematics from Harvard, having previously
      done research in computational astrophysics and pulsed power
      science. With the Plasma Control group, he plans on investigating
      machine learning applications for stabilizing plasma confinement
      in tokamaks, particularly on DIII-D.
    emails:
      - jjosephyzack@princeton.edu
      - jjosephy@pppl.gov
      - joshuajosephyzack@gmail.com
    photo_file_name: Josh_Josephy-Zack.png
    cv_file_name: Josh_Josephy-Zack_CV.pdf
    google_scholar_url: 
      https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=list_works&hl=en&user=PFTodTMAAAAJ&gmla=AC6lMd_a1ZyHvgGTDzy2-BgHa8VpbAlPj0es_ArgVJL9O1skNILB3tUO3wMhiLbxsSyWSbmOc56DmjsE7EFnrovHkE7-bi2nKNQB4OHOd90
    orcid_id: 0000-0002-7096-6471
    github_username: jjz73
undergraduate_students:
  - name: Kaya Unalmis
    title: Undergraduate Student
    description: Kaya is an undergraduate student at Princeton
      studying Electrical Engineering and Engineering Physics.
      As part of the stellarator team in the summer of 2022, Kaya
      contributed to the development of DESC, a stellarator equilibrium
      and optimization code. Outside of research, Kaya enjoys
      swimming and lifting.
    photo_file_name: Kaya_Unalmis.jpg

  - name: Felipe De Bolle
    title: Undergraduate Student

  - name: Aly Rashid
    title: Undergraduate Student

  - name: Luc Harbers
    title: Undergraduate Student
    description: Luc joined the group as a summer student in 2024.
      He worked on upgrades for the Liquid Metal eXperiment Upgrade
      at PPPL. Additioanlly, he performed preliminary analysis
      and experiments on surface waves in liquid metals. Currently,
      he is working on his senior project with the construction
      of a stellarator coil prototype.
    emails:
      - harbers@princeton.edu
    photo_file_name: Luc_Harbers.webp
visiting_scholars:
  - name: Andrea Hernandez
    title: Visiting Scholar
    description: High heat flux and recycling hydrogen isotopes
      (H/D/T) under strong magnetic fields are critical challenges
      for steady-state fusion reactors. To address these issues,
      Andrea's project aims to design an in-situ liquid metal
      centrifuge prototype for hydrogen isotope separation, using
      materials like Galinstan mixed with impurities such as Hafnium
      Oxide (HfO2) and Tungsten Trioxide (WO3). Employing X-ray
      fluorescence (XRF) for precise composition measurement,
      this work aims to optimize impurity-to-liquid metal ratios
      and create a benchmark for future lithium-based testing,
      enhancing efficiency in fusion reactors.
    photo_file_name: Andrea_Hernandez.jpg

  - name: Autria Aidun
    title: Visiting Scholar
    description: Autria's summer project involves studying the
      liquid lithium utilization in the LTX-β tokamak walls. She
      has developed an algorithm to measure the velocity of liquid
      lithium flow using video motion tracking, with the aim of
      understanding the forces driving this movement. The goal
      is to explore possible mechanisms for liquid lithium wall
      movement under plasma conditions and to better understand
      the benefits of liquid lithium's ability to improve fusion.
    photo_file_name: Autria_Aidun.jpg

  - name: David Wang
    title: Visiting Scholar
    description: The DIII-D tokamak in San Diego employs gyrotrons
      to emit microwave beams that heat up the plasma, in a process
      called Electron Cyclotron Heating (ECH). It is important
      to understand how these ECH beams affect both the temperature
      and current drive of the plasma, in order to control heating
      and mitigate plasma instabilities such as Tearing Modes
      and ELMs. The goal of the project is to build a machine
      learning surrogate to predict the temperature and current
      drive profiles in the plasma, adjusting quickly and accurately
      for plasma instabilities. By optimizing the hyperparameters
      for a multilayer perceptron neural network, David is steadily
      improve the accuracy of its predictions.
    photo_file_name: David_Wang.jpg

  - name: Junyoung Jang
    title: Visiting Scholar
    description: Junyong is an undergraduate student at Seoul
      National University. He is now visiting Princeton University
      to collaborate with Plasma Control Group in the process
      of converting the outputs of DESC into Boozer coordinate
      components. He is conducting research analyzing the results
      obtained from DESC using STELLOPT packages such as TERPSICHORE
      and NEO.
    photo_file_name: Junyoung_Jang.jpg

  - name: Taegeun Jeong
    title: Visiting Scholar
    description: Taegeun is an integrated B.S./M.S. student in
      Seoul National University, and collaborate with DESC team
      in Plasma Control Group. He is working on the design of
      flexible stellarator, especially optimizing multiple quasi-symmetric
      plasmas and coils in single device.
    photo_file_name: Taegeun_Jeong.jpg

  - name: Min Ki Jung
    title: Visiting Scholar
    description: Min Ki am a visiting scholar from Seoul National
      University, South Korea. He is working on integrating the
      magnetic field induction formulation into free surface liquid
      metal flow simulation code, FreeMHD.
    photo_file_name: Min_Ki_Jung.jpg

past_members:
  - name: Rory Conlin
    photo_file_name: Rory_Conlin.jpg
  - name: Joe Abbate
    photo_file_name: Joe_Abbate.jpg
  - name: Daniel Dudt
    photo_file_name: Daniel_Dudt.jpg
  - name: Susan Redmond
    photo_file_name: Susan_Redmond.jpg
  - name: Josiah Wai
    photo_file_name: Josiah_Wai.jpg
  - name: Zhen Sun
    photo_file_name: Zhen_Sun.jpg
  - name: J. A. Schwartz
    photo_file_name: JA_Schwartz.jpg
  - name: Jaemin Seo
    photo_file_name: Jaemin_Seo.jpg
  - name: Pat Vail
    photo_file_name: Pat_Vail.jpg
  - name: Tim Chen
    photo_file_name: Tim_Chen.jpg
  - name: Oak Nelson
    photo_file_name: Oak_Nelson.jpg
  - name: Adam Fisher
    photo_file_name: Adam_Fisher.jpg
  - name: Yichen Fu
    photo_file_name: Yichen_Fu.jpg
  - name: Mike Hvasta
    photo_file_name: Mike_Hvasta.jpg
  - name: Olivier Izacard
    photo_file_name: Olivier_Izacard.jpg
  - name: Florian Laggner
    photo_file_name: Florian_Laggner.jpg
  - name: David Eldon
    photo_file_name: David_Eldon.jpg
  - name: Alexandre Fil
    photo_file_name: Alexandre_Fil.jpg
  - name: Mikhail Modestov
    photo_file_name: Mikhail_Modestov.jpg
  - name: Matthijs Roelofs
    photo_file_name: Matthijs_Roelofs.jpg
  - name: Kornee Kleijwegt
    photo_file_name: Kornee_Kleijwegt.jpg
  - name: Koji Kusumi
    photo_file_name: Koji_Kusumi.jpg
  - name: Shoki Nakamura
  - name: Jason Crocker
  - name: Kayla Xu
    photo_file_name: Kayla_Xu.jpg
  - name: Daniel Vergara
    photo_file_name: Daniel_Vergara.jpg
  - name: Tal Shpigel
    photo_file_name: Tal_Shpigel.jpg
  - name: Ayomikun Gbadamosi
  - name: Samantha O'Sullivan
    photo_file_name: Samantha_OSullivan.jpg
  - name: Shayaan Subzwari
    photo_file_name: Shayaan_Subzwari.jpg
  - name: Nigel Mesta
    photo_file_name: Nigel_Mesta.jpg
  - name: Laura Fang
  - name: Yuno Iwasaki
  - name: Azmaine Iqtidar
  - name: Aaron Wu
  - name: Milan A Wolff
  - name: Bora Kiyan
  - name: Alex Liu
  - name: Nathaniel Barbour
    photo_file_name: Nathaniel_Barbour.jpg
  - name: Neil Slighton
    photo_file_name: Neil_Slighton.jpg
  - name: Gerrit Bruhaug
    photo_file_name: Gerrit_Bruhaug.jpg
  - name: Dhruval Patel
    photo_file_name: Dhruval_Patel.jpg