Active Research Projects
Breeding Blanket
A commercially viable deuterium-tritium fusion device needs a blanket to shield against neutrons and produce tritium. Columbia’s research in this area is focused on extracting tritium from the blanket and modeling how conducting blanket concepts interact with plasma dynamics.
Disruption Mitigation Research
Design against off-normal events is an essential part of fusion energy research. The rapid quench of the tokamak plasma (called a 'disruption') releases a burst of energy into the reactor vessel that must be controlled. Research involves designing systems and techniques to manage this energy release in a benign manner.
News
Fourth Annual Summer Student Poster Symposium
The fourth Annual Summer Student Poster Symposium, hosted by the Columbia Fusion Research Center, showcased the work of 32 undergraduate researchers across experimental and computational topics on August 5th, 2026.
Hands-On Fusion: Plasma Lab Hosts First "HBT-EP Fun Run"
Dr. Jeff Levesque hosted the "HBT-EP Fun Run" at the Columbia Plasma Physics Laboratory on July 17, 2026, allowing 25 participants, including 18 students, to operate a tokamak and observe live plasma discharges.
Columbia Fusion Research Center Hosts Magnetics Analysis Hackathon
A collaborative hackathon event was held to build a new GUI for doing rapid and consistent analysis of Tokamak magnetics data at the Columbia Fusion Research Center.