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jesse_viola_headshot - Jesse Viola
Jesse Viola
Graduate Student
Nuclear Science and Engineering
NW17-155

Jesse Viola is a PhD student in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. As an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, he is advised by Prof. Sophia Henneberg in the Plasma Science and Fusion Center. His research focuses on analytical MHD stability theory of stellarators and computational optimization of stellarator coil designs. Jesse also works as a physics consultant at Realta Fusion, studying axisymmetric magnetic mirrors. Outside of the lab, he is a club officer for MIT Men's Ice Hockey.

Education

BS, Honors Physics and Mathematical Physics, University of Michigan, 2023

Awards
  • NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation, 2026–2031
  • Lemelson Engineering Presidential Graduate Fellowship, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2025–2026
  • James B. Angell Scholar, University of Michigan, 2021
  • University Honors (×4), University of Michigan, 2019–2022

MHD stability theory in stellarators; stellarator coil optimization; hybrid stellarator-tokamak configurations

  • Shih, K., Endrizzi, D., Sutherland, D. A., Anderson, J. K., Biswas, B., Bindl, D., Claveau, E., Everson, C., Eickman, J., Frank, S. J., Marriott, E., Penne, E., Pizzo, J., Qian, T. M., Reusch, L., Sanwalka, K., Viola, J., Yakovlev, D., & Forest, C. B., "First implementation of absolute extreme ultraviolet (AXUV) diode-array-based analysis and macro-instability diagnostics on Wisconsin high-temperature superconducting axisymmetric mirror (WHAM)," Rev. Sci. Instrum. 97, 073505 (2026).
  • Frank, S. J., Agarwal, I., Anderson, J. K., Biswas, B., Claveau, E., Endrizzi, D., Everson, C., Harvey, R. W., Murdock, S., Petrov, Yu. V., Pizzo, J., Qian, T. M., Sanwalka, K., Shih, K., Sutherland, D. A., Tran, A., Viola, J., Yakovlev, D., Yu, M., & Forest, C. B., "Nonlinear anisotropic equilibrium reconstruction in axisymmetric magnetic mirrors," Phys. Plasmas. 33, 032504 (2026).
  • Frank, S. J., Viola, J., Petrov, Yu. V., Anderson, J. K., Bindl, D., Biswas, B., Caneses, J., Endrizzi, D., Furlong, K., Harvey, R. W., Jacobson, C. M., Lindley, B., Marriott, E., Schmitz, O., Shih, K., Sutherland, D. A., & Forest, C. B., "Confinement performance predictions for a high field axisymmetric tandem mirror," J. Plasma Phys. 91(4), E110 (2025).
  • Tran, A., Frank, S. J., Le, A. Y., Stanier, A. J., Wetherton, B. A., Egedal, J., Endrizzi, D. A., Harvey, R. W., Petrov, Yu. V., Qian, T. M., Sanwalka, K., Viola, J., Forest, C. B., & Zweibel, E. G., "Drift-cyclotron loss-cone instability in 3-D simulations of a sloshing-ion simple mirror," J. Plasma Phys. 91(3), E85 (2025).
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