Outstanding Poster Awards

Outstanding Undergraduate and High School Poster Awards

Every year, undergraduate and high school students present plasma physics-related research conducted at their institution or at internships across the country and internationally.  Presenting undergraduate and high school research at APS DPP is already an outstanding academic accomplishment, but students have an additional opportunity to have their work recognized through the APS DPP Outstanding Undergraduate and High School Poster Awards. A panel of DPP-member judges attends the undergraduate poster session and selects the top presentations based on the quality and impact of the research and its presentation. The judges also provide personalized feedback to each student participant. Award recipients receive certificates presented by the APS DPP Chair at the Student Appreciation Reception and are invited to attend the APS DPP banquet. Each award also includes a $200 cash price and a book voucher (£50 value) provided by the Journal of Plasma Physics.
To apply for the 2026 Outstanding poster awards, undergraduate and high school DPP student presenters should follow these steps:
  • Complete and interest form by Thursday, October 15, 2026 (form is coming soon)
  • Upload their poster (in PDF format) and a 5-minute video describing their work by Thursday, October 22, 2026

Past Awardees

2025

Jim Slone, College of William & Mary: Inferring Experimental Transport Parameters Through Machine Learning 

Rong Fan, University of Wisconsin-Madison: Instability Driven Turbulence and Angular Momentum Transport in Stratified Stellar Interiors 

Rishika Porandla, Princeton University: Multi-Modal Surface and Structural Characterization of Ultrathin Foils for Optimized Particle Transmission in Time-of-Flight Space Plasma Analyzers 

Amelia (Mel) M Chen, UC San Diego: Estimation of Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Electron Density for the Validation of a Heterodyne Dispersion Interferometer 

Hanga Andras-Letanovszky, University of Arizona: Is There Alfvénic Turbulence at the Apex of Solar Coronal Loops? 

2024

Shivam Dhirar: Examining the Effect of HiPIMS Sputtering Process Parameters on Permeability 

Kaan Aytekin: Fast Free-Free Absorption Coefficient Calculations Including Plasma Screening 

Autria S Aidun: Liquid Lithium Flow Flow Tracking in LTX-β Tokamak 

Robert B Morgan III: Investigation of the Effect of Ice Grain Size on RF Harmonic Structure in a Weakly Ionized Plasma 

Jim Slone: Probing and Inference of Density Pedestal Structure Through Machine Learning 

2023

Brendan P McCluskey: Simulation of Refraction Enhanced Radiography (RER) of Hydrodynamic Instabilities 

Sophia Guizzo: Modeling the vertical stability of negative triangularity reactors 

John A Labbate: Analyzing mode stability to identify stable operating regions for the novel SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak (SMART)

Robert B Morgan: Measuring Ice Grain Growth Rate in Caltech Dusty Plasma from Size and Wavelength Dependent Laser Extinction 

Margaret E Fairborn: GPU-accelerated grid-free Monte Carlo methods for evaluating heat transport in stellarators 

2022

Zihan Lin: Synthesis and Characterization of W/SiC Compositionally Graded Film as a Potential Plasma-facing Material 

Saad Ayub: Prototyping of a tunable filterscope based on acousto-optic filters for tokamak plasma spectroscopy 

Brittany Callin: Bayesian Optimization of Direct-Drive Inertial Confinement Fusion Simulations 

Geoffrey M Pomraning: Electron Beam Injection Method for Determining Plasma Frequency and Electron Density 

Brendan McCluskey: Direct measurement of density using Abel transform of Refracted Enhanced Radiograph (RER) in ICF capsule implosion at the National Ignition Facility 

Javier E Chiriboga: Particle Transport During the L-H transition Using Machine Learning 

2021

Cooper H Jacobus: Machine learning-enabled detection of ELM-Precursors in KSTAR ECEI data

Simran Chowdhry: Incorporating Quantum Electrons in Classical Calculations for Dense Plasmas

Abdullah Hyder: Development and Implementation of a Numerical Laser Energy-Deposition Model for the PSC particle-in-cell code

Joshua Lewis: A new collision module for predicting divertor heat flux in axisymmetric discharges

Sage Stanish: Topological data analysis and its application to drift wave turbulence

2020

Amelia Chambliss: Position Tolerance of Permanent Magnets and Reduction of Magnetic Islands in the Stellarator MUSE

Brandon Lee: Temperature Effects on Relief Pressure of Helium Bubbles in Tungsten

Emi Zeger: Prediction of DIII-D pedestal density structure from externally controllable parameters

Michael Hanson: The Impact of Resonant Magnetic Perturbation Strength on the L-H Power Threshold

Oscar Amaro: Optimal laser focusing for positron production in laser-electron scattering

Nominees for and holders of APS Honors (prizes, awards, and fellowship) and official leadership positions are expected to meet standards of professional conduct and integrity as described in the APS Ethics Guidelines. Violations of these standards may disqualify people from consideration or lead to revocation of honors or removal from office.