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Person

Joaquim Loizu Cisquella

This person has left EPFL

Joaquim Loizu was born in Barcelona, Spain. He graduated in Physics at EPFL, carrying out his Master thesis project at the Center for Bio-Inspired Technology, Imperial College London, on the theoretical and numerical study of the biophysics of light-sensitive neurons.In 2009, he started his PhD studies at the Swiss Plasma Center of EPFL. His thesis focused on the theory of plasma-wall interactions and their effect on the mean flows and turbulence in magnetized plasmas. He obtained his PhD in 2013 and was awarded the European Physical Society Plasma Physics PhD Research Award.In 2014, he became a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, spending one year at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (in the USA) and one year at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasma Physics (in Germany). During this time, he worked on three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamics, studying the formation of singular currents and magnetic islands at rational surfaces.In 2016, he obtained an Eurofusion Postdoctoral Fellowship to continue his research at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasma Physics. During this time, he focused on the computation of 3D MHD equilibria in stellarators, including the possibility of magnetic islands and magnetic field-line chaos.In 2018, he joined the Swiss Plasma Center as a Scientist and Lecturer. He is also a PI of the Simons Collaboration on Hidden Symmetries and Fusion Energy.In 2020, he was awarded the Young Scientist Prize in Plasma Physics from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.In 2025, he became MER (Maître d'Enseignement et Recherche) at EPFL. ResearchCurrent Research Fields My current research interests include stellarators, MHD equilibrium and stability, magnetic reconnection, non-neutral plasmas, plasma sheaths, plasma turbulence, and plasma transport in chaotic magnetic fields. Teaching & PhD PhD Students Zeno Tecchiolli, Pierrick Paul Louis Giroud-Garampon, Erol Balkovic, Ludovic Rais, Simone Barreca Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Guillaume Michel Le Bars, Antoine Baillod, António João Caeiro Heitor Coelho Courses General physics : electromagnetism PHYS-201(a) The topics covered by the course are concepts of electromagnetism and electromagnetic waves. Introduction to plasma physics PHYS-325 Introduction to plasma physics aimed at giving an overall view of the unique properties specific to a plasma. The models commonly used to describe its behavior are presented and illustrated with examples. Application to thermonuclear fusion and some astrophysical phenomena. Magnetic confinement PHYS-731 To provide an overview of the fundamentals of magnetic confinement (MC) of plasmas for fusion.The different MC configurations are presented, with a description of their operating regimes.The basic elements of particle & energy transport, of plasma-wall interaction & of burning plasma are introduced.

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Courses taught by this person (3)

PHYS-201(a): General physics : electromagnetism

Le cours traite des concepts de l'électromagnétisme et des ondes électromagnétiques. ...

PHYS-325: Introduction to plasma physics

Introduction à la physique des plasmas destinée à donner une vue globale des propriétés essentielles et uniques d'un plasma et à présenter les approches couramment utilisées pour modéliser son comportement. Application à la fusion thermonucléaire ainsi qu' ...

PHYS-731: Magnetic confinement

To provide an overview of the fundamentals of magnetic confinement (MC) of plasmas for fusion.The different MC configurations are presented, with a description of their operating regimes.The basic elements of particle & energy transport, of plasma-wall int ...

Related publications (64)

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People doing similar research (37)

Paolo Ricci

Paolo Ricci earned his masters degree in nuclear engineering at the Politecnico di Torino, Turin (Italy) in 2000. His doctoral studies were conducted at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, with focus on kinetic simulation of magnetic reconnection in the Earth's magnetotail. He spent two-and-a-half years as a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth College's Department of Physics and Astronomy, where he worked on gyrokinetic simulations of the Z pinch. He joined the EPFL's Swiss Plasma Center (SPC), as a EURATOM fellow in 2006, was named Tenure Track Assistant Professor in June 2010, and Associate Professor in August 2016. He is at the head of the SPC theory group. Paolo Ricci is the recipient of the 2016 Section de Physique Teaching Prize and of the 2021 Craie d'Or award from the EPFL physics bachelor students.

Ambrogio Fasoli

Ambrogio FASOLI was born on November 10, 1964, in Milano, Italy. After a classical high school diploma (Maturità Classica) and graduation from the University of Milano, with the degree of Dottore in Fisica, he obtained his Phd at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale (EPFL) with a thesis on chaos in wave-particle interactions in plasmas, which was awarded the Best EPFL Thesis prize, in 1993. He then moved to the JET Joint Undertaking, the largest worlds fusion device, near Oxford, UK, to investigate Alfvén waves and burning plasma physics. In 1995-1996 he took a sabbatical leave, visiting several Universities and Research Institutes in Europe and in the USA, including three months at General Atomics in San Diego. In 1996-1997, during a second period at JET, he participated in the fusion power worlds record experiments in Deuterium-Tritium plasmas at JET. In 1997 he was nominated Assistant Professor in MIT Physics Department, where he led a basic plasma physics group and the international collaboration between MIT and JET. In 2001 Ambrogio FASOLI was nominated Assistant Professor of Physics at EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, and Professeur Boursier of the Swiss National Science Foundation. He became member of CRPP Directorate and took the leadership of CRPP basic plasma physics group and of the TCV tokamak, one of the major fusion experiments worldwide. At European level he was scientific coordinator for JET experiments, spokesperson for multi-machine experiments in the frame of International Tokamak Physics Activities, and Project Leader for a JET Enhancement project. In 2005 he became Associate Professor of Physics with tenure at EPFL, then member of EFDA Science and Technology Advisory Committee, and of the Steering Committee of the Association EURATOM-Swiss Confederation. From 2006 he was also Deputy Director, then from 2007 Executive Director of CRPP and from 2008 Full Professor of Physics at EPFL. For a number of years he was the Chair of the EPFL Physics Strategic Committee and a member of the Directorate of the EPFL School of Sciences. Since the summer of 2014 Professor FASOLI was the sole Director of CRPP. He now represents Switzerland in the EUROfusion General Assembly and Bureau, and in the Governing Board for Fusion for Energy. He is member of the EUROfusion DEMO project Board, of the Scientific Board of the Helmotz Virtual Institute on Advanced Microwave Diagnostics, of the European Delegation for the Cooperation between Euratom and the Government of India in Fusion Energy Research, of the European Consortium for the development of the ITER gyratron (EGYC), and participates to numerous international review panels. He chairs the FuseNet Academic Council, the International Advisory Panel for the Laboratory of Excellence Plas@Par in the Sorbonne Universities, the European Consortium for the construction of the ITER microwave Upper Launcher (ECHUL), and the Promotion Committee of the EPFL Faculty of Basic Sciences. He is one the three European representatives in the International Tokamak Physics Activities Coordinating Committee, advising ITER, and the Editor-in-Chief of the IAEA journal Nuclear Fusion. Since January 2019, Ambrogio Fasoli is the Chair of the General Assembly, i.e. the president of EUROfusion, the European Consortium for Development of Fusion Energy. Professor FASOLI is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and since 2001 a Visiting Professor at MIT Physics Department. He is the Director of the Swiss Plasma Center.

Olivier Sauter

Basil Duval

Jonathan Graves

Prof. Jonathan P. Graves is a Senior Scientist at EPFL and Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of York, UK. He achieved first class joint honours in Electronic Engineering and Mathematics from the University of Nottingham, UK in 1996. He completed his Ph.D. in Theoretical Mechanics from the University of Nottingham, UK, three years later in 1999. During his Ph.D. he was based in the Culham theory group of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, developing kinetic descriptions of the internal kink instability, and participating in deuterium-tritium experimental analysis in the Joint European Torus. After a short time in industry, and a postdoc at Nottingham University, he took a position at the Swiss Plasma Center at EPFL, becoming a Senior Scientist in 2014, and became an Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of York, UK, in 2020. In 2015 he became a member of the EUROfusion Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) and a member of the EUROfusion DEMO Technical Advisory Group. He is on the editorial board for the journal Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, and in 2020 became Scientific Secretary of the Varenna-Lausanne International Workshop in Theory of Fusion Plasmas.

Stefano Coda

Christian Gabriel Theiler

Christian Theiler obtained his Master’s degree in physics from ETH Zurich in 2007 and his PhD from EPFL in 2011. He then joined MIT as a postdoctoral associate to work on the Alcator C-Mod tokamak. In 2014, he returned to EPFL as a EUROfusion fellow, to join the TCV tokamak team. Two years later, he was named Tenure Track Assistant Professor in Plasma Physics at EPFL. Christian’s research focuses on tokamak boundary physics and related diagnostic techniques. He has contributed to the understanding of the formation, propagation, and control of turbulent plasma structures, called blobs, and gained new insights on the structure of transport barriers in the plasma periphery in different high-confinement regimes. His current research focuses on detachment physics and turbulence characteristics in conventional and alternative divertor magnetic geometries.

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Wilfred Anthony Cooper

Yves Martin