At the beginning of February 2025, my colleagues Haluk, Gabriele, and I had the luck to attend a PhD course at EPFL Switzerland. This course is open to visitors and students from other universities as a winter school. We run into this opportunity at the end of November 2024 through a LinkedIn post on EPFL. For us, going to EPFL just for two weeks was already a dream: since I'm seeking to do a PhD, the amazing campus and the fame of the research environment of this world-leading university make us wonder how researchers live there.

"The future of energy lies in mastering the power of fusion—controlling the stars here on Earth."  This quote perfectly encapsulates the amazing experience I had during my training in tokamak fusion reactor control! 

Hi, I’m Lorenzo Didò, a master's student in Robotics System and Control at ETH Zurich.  Between the 3rd and 14th of February, I had the opportunity to attend the “Control and Operation of Tokamaks” course offered at EPFL by the SPS lab.  

Experience at EPFL’s "Control & Operations of Tokamaks" Course Participating in the "Control & Operations of Tokamaks" course at EPFL was an enriching experience, both academically and personally. The course provided a deep dive into the world of tokamak control, covering both theoretical foundations of control and real applications, crucial for magnetic confinement fusion research. 

I participated in the STEAM project, studying Innovative shields against extreme heat fluxesunder the supervision of Dr. Jan Horáček at the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences. As part of this project, I was involved in experiments, simulations and data analysis. I developed skills in COMSOL Multiphysics and experimental data processing. It was a valuable learning experience for me. It also gave me a chance to explore the beautiful city of Prague. Thanks to FuseNet for the opportunity.

Hi there! I'm Haluk, and I'm currently studying nuclear fusion through the FUSION-EP program. I'm at the University of Lorraine, working on my master's thesis. 

As the final step of my second year of a master’s program in magnetic fusion, I had the great opportunity to conduct my six-month master’s thesis at the Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) in Switzerland. Welcomed within one of the laboratories at EPFL, I worked on the TCV (Tokamak à Configuration Variable), a unique tokamak capable of shaping the plasma into various configurations within its vacuum vessel.