Member of Data Science division, MHD+ subgroup
Rian is a postdoctoral research associate, working on signal processing tools for identification of rotating instabilities in the SPARC tokamak. They have worked since highschool in plasma/fusion research teams, and are exited to continue in this necessarily interdisciplinary and collaborative field here at at the PSFC. In graduate school at the Columbia Fusion Research Center, they studied how electromagnetic coupling to a resistive wall changes the conditions under which the sawtooth crash can trigger tearing modes, leading to disruptions.
Identification and classification of magnitohydrodynamic instabilities using primarily magnetic fluctuation diagnostics, with an emphasis on understanding the onset physics of NTMs, as well as to ascertain additional physics quantities of interest in the plasma, such as rotation and q-profile identification.