The Columbia Fusion Research Center hosted the 2026 Magnetics Analysis Hackathon from June 29 through July 1, bringing together Columbia graduate students, undergraduate summer interns, researchers, and industry collaborators for three days of collaborative software development. Organized by Research Scientist Dr. Nikolas Logan, the event focused on developing an open-source, Python-based graphical interface for analyzing magnetic diagnostic data from tokamaks, replacing legacy command-line tools with a modern, intuitive platform for visualizing and analyzing magnetohydrodynamic instabilities. Designed with a machine-agnostic architecture, the software aims to support magnetic diagnostics across a wide range of present and future fusion devices while providing a flexible foundation for future analysis capabilities.
Working in focused development teams, students implemented the majority of the new software while collaborating closely with experienced researchers and receiving instruction through daily technical presentations on magnetic diagnostics, collaborative software engineering, and AI-assisted coding workflows. The hackathon provided the students with hands-on experience developing research software for real scientific applications while contributing directly to an open-source toolkit that will benefit the broader fusion community. By the conclusion of the event, the team had assembled a functional prototype integrating multiple magnetic analysis capabilities into a common framework, establishing a foundation for a next-generation analysis platform that can evolve alongside future tokamak experiments.
