One of the most important aspects of MIT’s educational mission is preparing students to be effective members of their scientific and technological communities. For Raspberry Simpson, that process began when she was a 17-year-old participant in the MIT Summer Research Program.
Officially entitled the Center for Advanced Nuclear Diagnostics and Platforms for Inertial ICF and HEDP at Omega, NIF and Z, the new Center will focus on the properties of plasma under extreme conditions of temperature, density and pressure.
MIT graduate student Caroline Sorensen is using her talent for mechanical engineering to help advance a novel project within the domain of applied science: the commercialization of fusion energy.
“You don’t learn this in class,” says junior Luke Hartnett, a mechanical engineering major. Working on biomass gasification with Leslie Bromberg, a principal research engineer in the PSFC, and Emmanuel Kasseris, a mechanical engineering research scientist, was his first taste of professional lab work.
Particle accelerators are some of the biggest man-made machines, capable of endowing particles with tera-electron-volts of energy. A group led by Richard Temkin at MIT has designed and tested a “metamaterial” that offers potential advantages for wakefield acceleration.
“Once you start learning about plasma it points you towards fusion," says research scientist Kevin Woller, recalling his introduction to ion accelerators.
