Uri Shumlak
Principal Investigator
Professor Shumlak enjoys working with his students to explore plasma behavior by developing high-fidelity and reduced plasma models and then applying high-order numerical methods to solve the associated partial differential equations. When he is not in the lab or lecture, he can often be found working up a sweat on the squash court or exploring hiking trails in the Pacific Northwest.
Graduate Students
Evan Bluhm
Graduate Researcher
Evan is a part-time M.S. student in the Physics department. He works on benchmarking and optimization for finite element kinetic plasma models. Since completing a B.S. in physics at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 2013, he now works as a software engineer at IBM building their cloud computing infrastructure.
Adrian Carrillo Cordero
Graduate Researcher
Adrian studies plasma instabilities. His work mainly focuses on determining whether fluid models capture instabilities that persist despite high collision frequencies. Outside of the lab, he finds joy in playing drums and mountain biking.
Howard Yu-Hao Cheng
Graduate Researcher
Howard’s research focuses on low-rank approximation for plasma kinetics equations, with the goal of reducing the high computational costs associated with solving kinetic models by leveraging mathematical tools to better understand plasma behavior and contribute novel insights to fusion energy research. When not in the office, you’ll likely find him running, biking, or hiking. He also enjoys racket sports, particularly badminton and tennis.
Mark Dunn
Graduate Researcher
Mark hopes to leverage fast algorithms and high-performance computing architectures to facilitate the kinetic treatment of fusion-grade plasmas. His interests include low-rank approximation, multilinear algebra, and statistical mechanics. In his free time, he enjoys reading philosophy, practicing his Mandarin, and listening to jazz and bossa nova.
Aria Johansen
Graduate Researcher
Aria studies plasma optimization. Working with collaborators from Google and X, her goal is to increase performance and understanding of Shear Flow Stabilized Z-Pinches using multiple diagnostics, data science, and machine learning techniques. In her spare time, she likes to retreat to the mountains to climb, backpack, and ski.
Gabriel Rodriguez
Graduate Researcher
Gabriel is interested in utilizing fusion reactions for advanced space propulsion, with a focus on the Z-pinch method, which holds promise as a potential fusion-based propulsion device—one of the closest approaches we have to interstellar travel. Beyond research, he enjoys game development, listening to music, and indulging in spicy foods.
Previous Graduate Students
- Dr. Jack Coughlin (Zap Energy)
- Dr. Daniel Crews (Zap Energy)
- Dr. Iman Datta (Zap Energy)
- Dr. Ammar Hakim (PPPL)
- Dr. Andrew Ho (LLNL)
- Dr. Ogden Jones (LLNL)
- Robert Lilly (AFRL)
- Dr. John Loverich (Tech-X)
- Dr. Wes Lowrie (Albuquerque Research Associates)
- Dr. Eric Meier (Zap Energy)
- Dr. Sean Miller (Sandia National Lab)
- David Osburn
- Dr. Noah Reddell (Zap Energy)
- Dr. Eder Sousa (Rand Corp.)
- Prof. Bhuvana Srinivasan (University of Washington)
- Andree Susanto (University of Waterloo)
- Dr. Sina Taheri (Microsoft)
- Dr. Yu Takagaki (Ex-Fusion)
- Dr. Whitney Thomas (Zap Energy)
- Prof. Bogdan Udrea (Embry-Riddle University)
- Dr. Genia Vogman (UC – Berkeley) (LLNL)
- Ward Vuillemot (Boeing)
Collaborators
Dr. Eric Meier
After earning his PhD from UW Aeronautics and Astronautics in 2011, Eric completed a postdoc at LLNL, modeling novel divertor concepts for mitigating tokamak plasma exhaust challenges. He then held research scientist positions at William and Mary and the University of Washington, studying drift effects on the tokamak edge and divertor plasma. Eric then joined Zap Energy Inc. in 2020 to participate in development of Z-pinch technology for fusion energy.
Dr. Jack Coughlin
Jack is a Computational Scientist at Zap Energy. He works on spectral moment methods for the collisional Boltzmann equation. He also enjoys cooking, learning both programming and natural languages, and walking with his dog around his native Seattle.
Dr. Whitney Thomas
After finishing her B.S. in mechanical engineering at the UW in ’08, she spent eight years in the marine industry doing mechanical systems design and sailing in the Merchant Marine as an engineer. She joined the CPDL in 2016, where she researches plasma-based photonic crystals in high powered applications using high fidelity plasma models.
Dr. Daniel Crews
Daniel is a Computational Scientist at Zap Energy where he works on model reduction in collisionless plasmas. His favorite research topics are high-order finite element methods, waves in plasmas, Hamiltonian mechanics, and turbulence theory. Besides research, he enjoys playing guitar, astronomy, looking at clouds, and growing plants.