First annual prizes awarded during Fusion Frontiers Week 2019

The annual Fusion Frontiers and Interfaces workshop took place at York Plasma Institute from 29 April to 3 May 2019. This workshop explores the frontiers of fusion research and the interfaces with related disciplines and features presentations from world-class international fusion scientists. 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 restaurant in York.

This year the Fusion CDT established a 1st year Fusion CDT Poster Award for producing the most outstanding poster. The posters were judged by Prof. Roddy Vann ( Programme Director), Prof. Mark Henderson (ITER), James Ellis (4th Year York PhD) and Ben Woods (4th Year York PhD). After much deliberation, two students won the poster prize: Lena Howlett for her poster titled, “Turbulence in confinement transitions in novel divertor configurations”, and Emma Hume with her poster titled, “Hot dense matter creation via ultra intense laser interaction with novel, structured targets”. Well done Emma and Lena!

Alongside the Poster Award, the Fusion CDT Excellence in Outreach prize was awarded for the first time. The winning entry was decided by a panel of judges from the five partner universities of the Fusion CDT. The entrants were judged on purpose, reach, audience appropriateness, quality, and impact. The winner of this year’s Excellence in Outreach award was the “A Glass of Seawater” podcast for their hard work to bring fusion facts and stories to their listeners. The judges thought all entries to the award were of extremely high quality and it was a very hard task to pick a final winner. Well done to all!