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.

This year's presenters included participants in the Summer@SEAS program, NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), and returning members of the Fusion Research group.

The symposium was attended by faculty advisors as well as fellow students, research scientists, friends, and family.

Awards were presented to the following students for outstanding posters:

Best Poster: Deniz Yilmaz

Runner Up: Tanmay Gupta

Honorable Mention: Lily Shure, Via (Sarah) Weber, Ashling Walshe

Participants Included: 

Thomas Wang: GDB-RMP: A differentiable reduced-MHD framework for tearing modes and resonant magnetic perturbations in tokamaks

Roshan Mehta: Measuring Density Fluctuations in the Solar Corona Between 1.1 and 3 Solar Radii

Claire Campbell: Magnetic Field Compression and Particle Acceleration in Relativistic Turbulence

Matthew Heupel: Data-Driven PDE Discovery for Quasilinear Diffusion in Magnetic Fields with Strongly Overlapping Islands

Claire Johnson: Resistive wall modeling using GPEC/DCON+ThinCurr and validation using DIII-D data

Deniz Yilmaz: Optimizing End Plate Biasing for Instability Suppression in Axisymmetric Magnetic Mirror Devices

Via (Sarah) Weber: A Fast, Robust Computation of the Resonant Plasma Response to 3D Fields via a Matrix Riccati Integrator in GPEC 2.0

Amlakbekalu Achule: A Physics-Based Truncation for Tokamak Equilibria: Using GPEC to Locate Resistive Layer Overlap

Michael Lu: A differentiable edge transport code on a Cartesian grid for realistic first-wall modeling

John Lhota: TokaMaker-TORAX Integration with DIII-D Reference Discharges

Kevin Clavijo: Peeling-Ballooning Stability Computation for Arbitrary H-mode Plasmas

Talia Angles: Validation of TokaMaker-TORAX for Pulse Simulations of DIII-D and FAST

Tianlang Gong: A Single-Stage Optimization Pipeline of Movable Toroidal Field Coils for the Columbia Reconfigurable Experiment

Lily Shure: Advancing HTS Critical Current Characterization under Fusion-Relevant Conditions

Ayesha Chowdhury: Thermal Shielding for the Columbia Stellarator eXperiment

Luis Rubio: Optimizing Thermal and Electrical Efficiency in Stellarator Magnet via Custom Cryostat and Lead Stack Redesign

Priya Haran: Automated Quench Detection and Protection for the Columbia Stellarator eXperiment

Eva Kemle: Mechanical Infrastructure Development for the Columbia Tritium Extraction Experiment

Damien Kildoff and Dila Yagmurdereli: Building a Tokamak: Preparation of the Vacuum Vessel and External Components

Jai Dreher: Building a Tokamak: The Center Stack

Irene Gao: CUTE Power Systems Hardware Assembly

Olena Teslia: CUTE Control Systems and Data

Sam Prausnitz-Weinbaum: Design and Measurement of 3D Banana Coils for HBT-EP Hybrid Upgrade

Maddox Mayo: HBT-EP tokamak-stellarator hybrid upgrade test coil design and fabrication

Adrian Karras: Low Resistance Joints for the Hybrid HBT-EP Banana Coils

Ashling Walshe: GaN Hall Sensors for Steady State Plasma Diagnostics

Lan Huse: Hardware Setup of Pellet Injection Test Stand for Characterizing Ablation

Alia Bayoumi: Dielectric Characterization of Mixed H₂+Ne Cryogenic Pellets

Sara John: Design of a Force Sensing System for Cryogenic Pellet Injection

Tanmay Gupta: Characterization of Self-Inductance and Eddy Current Errors in HBT-EP REMC Electromagnetic Modeling