My name is Rick van Schaik and I am a master student at the University of Technology in 
Eindhoven, studying Science and Technology of Nuclear Fusion. I deeply enjoyed my first year of 
courses and developed an unwavering passion for the realisation of fusion energy. My goal is to 
obtain more relevant knowledge and skills to take part in this purposeful endeavour. 

I had the wonderful opportunity to do an internship in the Fusion group at the Barcelona 
Supercomputing Center (BSC) in (of course) Barcelona. In the Fusion group, they focus on the
development and optimisation of fusion-relevant computational modelling codes. My project 
was related to the development and validation of an electromagnetic wave propagation and 
heating module in fusion plasmas, as part of a multiphysics simulation platform that is under 
development at the Fusion group. I spent time optimising and developing the pre- and postprocessing workflow, implementing an antenna source term in the simulations, performing a 
preliminary qualitative validation analysis of the antenna radiation, and finally using
experimental JET scenarios for qualitative validation of the module’s cold plasma model by 
comparison with theoretical predictions.

In this 10-week period, I already learned a lot of valuable skills for my career, and I am grateful to 
the Fusion group at the BSC for warmly welcoming me and making this an educational and 
inspirational experience.

Besides working on my project, of course, I spent time exploring Barcelona and its surroundings. 
It was wonderful to be able to take my time and have a lot of enjoyable walks, although the 
metro system is incredibly efficient. I certainly enjoyed some good paella, tapas, and sangria as 
well!

My sincere thanks to FuseNet for their financial support, enabling this internship opportunity.
I am looking forward to starting my master’s graduation project, learning more and investigating 
the possibilities and opportunities after I graduate. We’re living in exciting times for fusion and I 
cannot wait to actively participate in the realisation of fusion energy