My current research focuses on developing, utilizing and extending optimization tools to find new, advantageous stellarator designs. (Stellarators? They are a promising path towards fusion energy.)  Among other research outputs, I led the invention of a novel stellarator-tokamak hybrid concept (read more about it here in the PRR hybrid paper or in the  NewScientist article), and I have developed methods to combine plasma and coils (“single-stage”) optimization, crucial for finding feasible stellarator designs.

In addition to my research, I was the Principle Investigator of the Stellarator Optimization TSVV (Theory, Simulation, Validation and Verifiation) group which is a European collaboration, including institutes in Spain, Switzerland, Finnland and Germany. I am a core member of the international Simons collaboration “Hidden symmetries and Fusion Energy” where the primary research is stellarator optimization.
In the past, I was also the Stellarator Optimization Task Leader of the HILOADS (Helmholtz International Laboratory for Optimized Advanced Divertor in Stellarators) collaboration, which was an US-German collaboration.

After graduating from the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main with a bachelor’s degree, I completed my Fulbright year with a master’s degree in Madison, Wisconsin. At the University of York, I started my PhD under the supervision of Prof Howard Wilson and close collaboration with Prof Sir Steve Cowley which I finished in 2016. My research was focused on modelling Edge Localised Modes (ELMs) using the non-linear ballooning mode envelope equation which can be derived from ideal MHD theory and which describes the filamentary and explosive behaviour of ELMs.