Applied Physics Students and Scientists Honored at APS Meeting

Applied Physics students and scientists were honored at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics held from November 8–12, 2010 in Chicago, Illinois. Columbia University plasma physics research was well represented at the meeting of over 1,800 scientists from around the world with 20 other contributed presentations from Columbia faculty, scientists, and students.

Adjunct Professor Steven Sabbagh (Ph.D. '90 Plasma Physics) was named Fellow of the American Physical Society. Professor Sabbagh's award was presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics for leadership in advancing the understanding of magnetohydrodynamics equilibrium, stability, rotation damping, and active feedback control of high-beta tokamak and low-aspect ratio tokamak plasmas. Also at the meeting, Prof. Sabbagh was invited to lecture about his latest research results conducted at the National Spherical Tokamak Experiment (NSTX), entitled "Progress Toward Stabilization of Low Internal Inductance Spherical Torus Plasmas in NSTX".

Dr. Matthew Lanctot (Ph.D. '10 Plasma Physics), a student of Prof. Gerald Navratil, was invited to lecture on his research results conducted on the DIII-D tokamak (located in San Diego), entitled "Measurement and Modeling of 3D Equilibria in DIII-D".

Xabier Sarasola, a doctoral student studying with Prof. Thomas Pedersen, was invited to lecture on his results with the Columbia Non-neutral Torus (CNT), entitled, "Plasmas of arbitrary neutrality".