Will George

Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT

Making clean and economical fusion energy available to our society is a grand challenge of 21st century science and engineering. The PSFC, along with global research partners, seeks to answer this challenge by exploring innovative ways to accelerate the pace of fusion's development. The PSFC is an interdisciplinary research center because fusion requires an approach that folds in the majority of the engineering and science disciplines found at MIT: physics, nuclear science and engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry, and material science, to name a few. Our mission is to identify and understand how cutting-edge advances in science and technology can provide fusion energy "smaller and sooner". The PSFC hosts a wide variety of experimental facilities at the Albany Street corridor on the campus of MIT including plasma devices, powerful superconductor magnets and high-energy accelerators. In parallel, novel measurements are developed for the very challenging fusion environment, which are then are compared to leading-edge theory and simulation. This research mission is completely integrated with the training and mentoring a new generation of multidisciplinary fusion scientists and engineers. All in all this makes the PSFC a vital and important contributor to the fusion energy mission.