Staff Directory

Wataru is a postdoctoral researcher working on stellarator optimization. He recently completed his PhD at the University of California Irvine where he studied fast ions in experiments in the Large Helical Device (LHD). Through his thesis research he contributed to the FIDASIM synthetic diagnostic code and further expanded th understanding of fast ion confinement in the inward-shifted LHD configuration. He als studied fast ion interactions with Alfven eigenmodes and energetic particle modes. In his current position, Wataru works on single-stage optimization of quasi-symmetric stellarator configurations.

In addition to his work as a researcher, Wataru was a member of the inaugural cohort of the Fusion Student Delegation. With the delegation, he spent a week in Washington, DC discussing the future of fusion energy policy with congressional offices from his home state of Hawaii, as well as with Nevada and California.

Shreyas joined the APAM Department at Columbia in Fall of 2024. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Computer Science in 2024 from Rensselaer Polytechnic institute in Troy, NY. Shreyas worked at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory for two years during his undergraduate studies, benchmarking a novel hybrid kinetic model for magnetized plasmas and simulating the Large Plasma Device at UCLA. He also interned at Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany, creating an electrophoretic deposition process to coat tungsten to be used in fusion devices. Shreyas’ current research interests include developing fluid and kinetic simulations of plasma in fusion devices.

Rohan will join the APAM Department at Columbia in Fall of 2023. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Physics and Mathematics in 2023 from Pomona College in Claremont, CA. 

Matthew is a third-year undergraduate in mathematics and physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

He is participating in this summer's REU, working on data-driven particle transport modeling with Prof. Elizabeth Paul. His interests span machine learning and optimization applied to physics and other dynamical systems, as well as numerical methods for partial differential equations. He hopes to pursue a graduate degree in applied mathematics.

Outside of research and academics, he enjoys rock climbing, cooking, and reading.

Maria is a junior majoring in Applied Math and Applied Physics. She is interested in applying advanced mathematical tools to fusion-related optimization problems. In her free time, Maria enjoys exploring NYC museums and listening to science podcasts.

Maria works on refining the design of the non-planar coils of the Columbia Stellarator Experiment (CSX). Her research involves sensitivity and tolerance computations, under the mentorship of Dr. Antoine Baillod and Prof. Elizabeth Paul.

John joined the APAM Department at Columbia in the Summer of 2024 after earning a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering in 2023 from the University of Maryland, College Park. John first explored plasma physics through his undergraduate thesis, where he developed, tested, and modeled a helicon-like ion thruster at his university's Space Power and Propulsion Laboratory. During the Summer of 2023, John completed a SULI internship at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory studying negative triangularity configurations in the SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak (SMART). John also worked to improve the mapping of 3D magnetic sensor data to the tokamak wall using informed basis functions choices during the Summer of 2024 at Columbia.

Research Focus: Currently, John is focusing on stellarator modeling and optimization with respect to retaining energetic particles, specifically those nearing resonant conditions.

JungDae is a Fulcrum Science Fellow working with the Paul Group as part of Fulcrum Science's Accelerating Science with AI initiative. His current work focuses on applying agentic AI to accelerate fusion research, scientific simulations, and custom research software development for the lab. Before joining Columbia, he worked as a product lead and software engineer at startups in Seoul, South Korea. He earned a B.A. in Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University and serves as a Lieutenant in the Republic of Korea Navy Reserve.

Jake joined the Plasma Physics Lab in Fall 2023 after finishing his B.S. in nuclear engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. Throughout his undergraduate degree, Jake spent time in a wide variety of plasma research including theoretical modeling of space-charge-limited emission in vacuum diodes at Purdue, experimental studies of hollow cathodes for electric propulsion at the Naval Research Laboratory, and computational work in gyrokinetic simulations of turbulence in fusion reactors. Jake is interested in a wide variety of problems in plasma physics and will refine his research focus during his first year at Columbia, hoping to incorporate both computational and experimental research into his project.

Dr. Elizabeth Paul uses theoretical and computational methods to study the magnetic confinement of plasmas for fusion energy sciences. Controlled fusion holds promise of providing a carbon-neutral, safe, and sustainable energy source. Her work focuses on the advancement of the stellarator magnetic confinement concept, a complex toroidal device which enjoys enhanced stability properties.

Dr. Paul’s research integrates applied mathematical techniques to improve the design of stellarator configurations through numerical optimization. She studies the rich behavior present in three-dimensional magnetic confinement devices, including the nonlinear dynamics of fast particle populations.

Dr. Paul received her A. B. in Astrophysical Sciences with concentrations in Applied and Computational Mathematics and Applications of Computing from Princeton University in 2015. In 2020 she received her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Maryland, College Park. In 2021 Dr. Paul received the Marshall N. Rosenbluth Award from the American Physical Society in recognition of her doctoral work, “For pioneering the development of adjoint methods and application of shape calculus for fusion plasmas, enabling a new derivative-based method of stellarator design.” Prior to joining Columbia University, Dr. Paul was a Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University.

Dingyun Liu is a postdoctoral researcher working on wave-particle interactions (WPI) in 3D fields. She is developing the Wave Interaction Simulation Platform (WISP) using a reduced model to study the impacts of 3D fields on WPI in general geometries, with applications to energetic particles in magnetic confinement devices and radiation belt electron transport.

Prior to joining Columbia, Dingyun received her PhD from the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. Her thesis focused on gyrokinetic simulations of turbulence in the tokamak scrape-off layer, with close comparisons to experiments. To enable simulations in the high-collisionality regime, she implemented an implicit, moments-conserving BGK collision operator within the Gkeyll framework. She has also worked on experimental and computational studies of tokamak sawtooth crashes.

Brandon joined APAM in Fall 2024 to pursue a Ph.D. in plasma physics. He previously earned bachelor’s degrees in physics and chemical engineering at the University of Missouri - Columbia and worked as a Fulbright Student at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald, Germany. Brandon received the Tau Beta Pi Fellowship in 2022 and the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship in 2023. He is broadly interested in stellarator theory.

Avigdor started a PhD in Applied Physics at Columbia in Fall 2024. Previously, Avigdor studied physics at UCLA, where he conducted research on plasma material interactions. After UCLA, he worked as a computational scientist at TAE Technologies, where he developed a simulation framework in the PIC code WarpX and studied energetic particle instabilities in the field-reversed configuration. In his free time, Avigdor enjoys skateboarding, hiking, and live music.

Amelia joined the APAM Department at Columbia in Fall of 2022 and received the DOE Computational Sciences Graduate Fellowship in 2023. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Physics in 2020 from Reed College in Portland, OR. She completed her undergraduate thesis developing a numerical method to approximate particle position in a magnetic mirror field, building a magnetic mirror machine around a pre-existing glow discharge experiment. Beginning in 2020 as a SULI student, Amelia worked at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory for two years, applying the gradient and Hessian matrix methods to determine the sensitivity of magnetic island chains in permanent magnet stellarators to perturbations in permanent magnet parameters. Amelia also spoke about the importance of diversity, inclusion, and outreach efforts in the fusion community at the White House Summit on Fusion Energy in March of 2022. 

Dr. Knyazev specializes in theoretical plasma physics in the areas of energetic particle dynamics, plasma kinetics, fusion plasmas, and laser plasma interactions. He also maintains an active interest in theoretical problems related to nonlinear dynamics, turbulent transport, and kinetic theory.

Alexey's current project focuses on understanding the physics related to the dynamics of the energetic ions in stellarators, and on utilizing this understanding to control and predict the transport of fusion-born alpha particles in a stellarator power plant.

Prior to joining Prof. Paul's group, Alexey earned his Ph.D. under the mentorship of Professor Sergei Krasheninnikov at the University of California, San Diego. During his time at UCSD, Dr. Knyazev worked on various topics related to energetic particle dynamics, relativistic laser plasma interactions, and reduced models for turbulent impurity transport. He also contributed to development and did theoretical analysis for the gyro-kinetic code COGENT in collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Alexa (Alexandra) Lachmann is a Ph.D. student in Applied Physics at Columbia University, where she studies energetic particle dynamics and wave–particle interactions in stellarators. Her current work focuses on using Weighted Birkhoff Averaging to quantify phase-space chaos and integrability in systems with quasisymmetry-breaking modes and Alfvén eigenmodes. She is also currently the Director of Outreach at the Plasma Physics lab, contributing fusion outreach and education.

Abdullah joined the plasma physics PhD program in Fall 2022. He earned his bachelor's in Computer Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology with a minor in physics. Prior to joining Columbia, he was an intern at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory working with Dr. Will Fox on particle-in-cell codes for high-energy-density plasmas.