The annual Fusion Frontiers and Interfaces workshop took place at York Plasma Institute from 30 April to 4 May 2018. This workshop explores the frontiers of fusion research and the interfaces with related disciplines and features presentations from world-class international fusion scientists.
The workshop was attended by PhD students from the Fusion CDT, and also by students currently taking the MSc Fusion Energy at University of York. Post Docs and academics based at YPI were also in attendance. This year’s event featured an exciting selection of speakers:
- Friedrich Wagner (Max Planck Institut fur Plasmaphysik) – Renewable electricity sources and the future role of fusion.
- Gerardo Giruzzi (French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission) – JT-60SA – overview of project & scientific programme
- Rachael McDermott (Max Planck Institut fur Plasmaphysik) – Tokamak transport and the role of plasma rotation
- Costanza Maggi (Culham Centre for Fusion Energy) – Tokamak pedestal physics in JET DT plasmas
- Dimitri Batani (Center for Intense Lasers and Applications) – Physics of Inertial Fusion Energy direct drive shock ignition
- Brigitte Cros (CNRS – LPGP, Université Paris Sud) – Laser wakefield acceleration of electrons
- Vasco Guerra (Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear, University of Lisbon) – Non-equilibrium kinetics of molecular plasmas
- Jonathan Citrin (Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research) – Gyrokinetic turbulence model reduction for fast tokamak simulation
- Susannah Speller (University of Oxford) – Superconducting materials for high field magnets
- Amy Gandy (University of Sheffield) – Radiation damage in materials for fusion
When the speakers finished on the Wednesday lunchtime, the Fusion CDT students then led their own conference for the rest of the week. This student conference was organised by a committee of volunteers. The programme included talks given by the Fusion CDT students about their research, a poster presentation session and dinner at a local Chinese restaurant (with karaoke!).
We are already looking forward to next year’s event.