Prize Recipient

Stefan P. Gerhardt
University of Wisconsin

"For insightful theoretical modeling and innovative experimental mesurement of plasma flows in three-dimensional toroidal geometries and demonstration of reduced parallel viscous damping with quasisymmetry."

Dr. Stefan Gerhardt received his Bachelors degree from the U. of Wisconsin-Madison in 1998, from the interdisciplinary Applied Math, Engineering, and Physics (AMEP) program. During this time, he worked at the Madison Symmetric Torus experiment and wrote his senior thesis on the development of a NIR bremsstrahlung diagnostic for Z­eff measurements.

Dr. Gerhardt did his Ph.D work at the Helically Symmetric eXperiment (HSX), a quasiymmetric stellarator in the Electrical Engineering department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He participated in many aspect of the commissioning and initial operation of that device. His dissertation work, done with advisors Professor David Anderson and Dr. Joseph Talmadge, experimentally demonstrated the reduction in neoclassical flow damping in a quasisymmetric stellarator. This work was honored with the Harold Peterson Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Electrical Engineering Department, as well as the Marshall N. Rosenbluth award from the American Physical Society.

Dr. Gerhardt is presently employed by the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, studying the formation and stability of compact toroid plasmas formed by spheromak merging. He is a member of the American Physical Society.

Tom Katsouleas (Chair), Edl Schamiloglu (12/05), Howard Milchberg (2004 Advisor) (12/05), Farhat Beg (Vice Chair) (12/06), Stephen Jardin (12/06)