Women+ in Plasma Physics

Current committee members

Saskia Mordijck (Chair)

Saskia Mordijck is an Assistant Professor at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. She received her Master in Engineering (2006) from the KULeuven in Belgium and her Ph.D. from the University of California San Diego in 2011. She joined W&M first as a research professor in the computer science department and became a tenure track faculty member in 2016. Her research is on transport in Magnetically Confined Plasmas and includes experiment, theory and modeling. She is currently a member of the ITPA, the USBPO, and also a member of the Executive Committee of the APS Division of Plasma Physics. When she is not working, she likes to go for a run, hike, or discover the world with her boys.

Elizabeth Merritt (Vice-Chair)

Dr. Elizabeth Merritt is a staff Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratories where she specializes in experimental high-energy-density (HED) hydrodynamics and inertial-confinement fusion (ICF). Dr. Merritt received a B.A. in mathematics and physics from Mount Holyoke College, with a concentration in optoelectronics, and her Ph.D. in physics from the University of New Mexico in 2013, for work on plasma jets for magneto-inertial-fusion. Dr. Merritt is currently the lead experimentalist on the LANL NIF Multi-shock campaign, which is examining hydrodynamic instabilities growth and transition to turbulence under complex conditions similar to ICF capsules. Dr. Merritt is also actively involved in LANL educational outreach efforts, and several APS-DPP advocacy groups including W+IPP, the DEI OC, and formerly CONNECT.

Stephanie Hansen (Past-Chair)

Stephanie Hansen is a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in the ICF target design group at Sandia National Laboratories, where she develops atomic, spectroscopic, equation-of-state, and transport models to help predict and diagnose the behavior of high energy-density plasmas. In 2014 she was awarded a five-year Early Career grant from the Department of Energy’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences to study the atomic-scale behavior of materials at extreme conditions. She joined Sandia after several years as a staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, holds degrees in both physics and philosophy from the University of Nevada, Reno, and has two children.

Maria Gatu Johnson

Dr. Gatu Johnson is a research scientist in the High Energy Density physics group at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. She divides her time between using nuclear diagnostics to understand Inertial Confinement Fusion plasmas, doing astrophysically-relevant nuclear science experiments at the OMEGA and NIF laser facilities, and managing the MIT HED accelerator for nuclear diagnostic development. Dr. Gatu Johnson received her PhD in Applied Nuclear Physics from Uppsala University, Sweden, in 2010, working on neutron diagnostics for the JET tokamak. When not working she enjoys outside activities including hiking and camping with her husband and two daughters.

Raspberry Simpson

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Stephanie Diem

Dr. Steffi Diem is an Assistant Professor in the Engineering Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where her experimental plasma physics research focuses on using microwaves to heat and drive current in magnetically confined, high-temperature plasmas for fusion energy development and innovative plasma startup techniques on the PEGASUS-III Experiment. She received her B.S. in Nuclear Engineering at UW-Madison and Ph.D. in Astrophysical Sciences from Princeton University. Dr. Diem was recently selected to be a member of the New Voices of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, currently serves on the APS-DPP Executive Committee, is Co-leader of the US Fusion Outreach Team and is faculty advisor of the new APS-sponsored Women+ in Plasma Physics student group at UW-Madison. Outside of work, she enjoys biking with her spouse and competing in dog agility around the US.

Bhuvana Srinivasan

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Devon Battaglia

Devon Battaglia is a Research Physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Devon was introduced to plasma physics by the high school summer internship program at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE). He was instantly hooked by the dynamic of working on a highly collaborative experiment and contributing to the grand challenge of commercialized fusion energy. He earned a B.S. in Engineering Physics and a B.A. in Music from Lehigh University in 2003 and was recognized as a Tau Beta Pi National Laureate due to his diverse achievements in arts and engineering. A tour of a Spheromak at LLNL during a two-week summer undergraduate program introduced Devon to magnetic confinement fusion research and he went on to join the Pegasus Toroidal Experiment at UW-Madison for graduate studies. After earning his PhD in 2009, Devon joined the NSTX experiment team at PPPL as DOE Postdoctoral Fellow for two years, then transitioned to a second postdoctoral appointment stationed at DIII-D in San Diego. Devon presently leads both the Physics Operations Group and the Advanced Scenarios and Control Science Group at the NSTX-U experiment. He lives in the Princeton, NJ area with his wife and two school-aged children.

Amina Hussein

Dr. Amina Hussein is an Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Alberta in Canada. She leads a research group exploring high-intensity laser-matter interactions, including laser-driven beam and radiation sources, with applications in fundamental physics, industry and medicine. She received her BSc Hons. in Physics from McGill University before going on to complete an MS in Nuclear Engineering from Purdue University and a PhD in Applied Physics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2019, where she was a member of the Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science. She was recently elected Co-Chair of the first LaserNetUS Users’ Group (I-USE) and as a member of the Executive Council of the Jupiter Laser Facility Users’ Group. She lives in Edmonton AB with her husband and cat, Roz, and loves to get outside to run, hike and climb.

Codie Fiedler Kawaguchi

Codie Fiedler Kawaguchi is a first year graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and scientific computing at  the University of Michigan. Codie received a B.A. from Bryn Mawr college in Physics in 2018. Before beginning graduate school Codie worked as a post-baccalaureate at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 2021 Codie was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship which has allowed them to engage in research topics such as data science methods in high energy density physics. Their other research interests include: radiation hydrodynamics, inertial confinement fusion, interfacial instabilities & turbulence, and STEM education. After completing their Ph.D. they plan to pursue a career as a professor in physics/engineering with the goal of improving STEM education and accessibility for underrepresented groups. While not working, Codie enjoys climbing, quilting and spending time with family and friends.

Former committee members

Lorin Matthews (Former Chair)

Lorin Matthews graduated from Baylor University with a B.S. and Ph.D. in Physics in 1994 and 1998, respectively. She worked for Raytheon Aircraft Integration Systems from 1998-2000 as a multi-disciplined engineer in the Flight Sciences Department, where she was the lead vibroacoustics analyst on projects such as NASA’s SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) aircraft. In 2000, she joined the faculty at Baylor University where she is now a Professor in the Department of Physics and Associate Director of CASPER, the Center for Astrophysics, Space Physics, and Engineering Research. Her areas of research include numerical modeling and experimental investigations of the charging and dynamics of dust in astrophysical and laboratory plasma environments, including processes which influence the early stages of planet formation in protoplanetary disks, the evolution of dusty structures in planetary rings, and dynamics, stability, and phase transitions in self-assembling systems such as dust crystals and dust strings. She is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the APS Division of Plasma Physics and Chair of the Committee on Women in Plasma Physics. She lives in a renovated 120-year old department store with her husband and four children..

Félicie Albert

Félicie Albert is a scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA, which she joined as a postdoctoral researcher in 2008, and as a staff scientist in 2010 in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) and Photon Science directorate. She earned her PhD in physics in 2007 from the Ecole Polytechnique in France, her MS in Optics from the University of Central Florida in 2004, and her BS in engineering from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Physique de Marseille, France, in 2003. Her research is on the generation of novel sources of electrons, x-rays and gamma-rays through laser-plasma interaction, laser-wakefield acceleration, and Compton scattering. She has conducted many experiments using high-intensity lasers, including NIF, LLNL’s Jupiter Laser Facility, OMEGA-EP, and Stanford’s Linac Coherent Light Source x-ray free electron laser. She is the recipient of a 2016 U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Research Program Award, and has been leading several Laboratory Directed Research and Development Projects at LLNL. She is also the recipient of the 2017 Katherine E. Weimer award from the American Physical Society for outstanding achievements in plasma science research, and was selected by the APS as an outstanding referee in 2015. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, and when not at work, she enjoys outdoor activities in the mountains or the ocean, and being in France with her family.

Luis Felipe Delgado-Aparicio Villaran

A native of Lima-Peru, Luis Felipe Delgado-Aparicio Villaran earned a bachelor and licentiate degrees in physics from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru in 1997, and a master’s degree in Astrophysics from Princeton University in 2001. He obtained a second master’s in physics from The Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and received his PhD in physics also from JHU in 2007. Most of his experimental diagnostic and nuclear fusion work was carried out at the NSTX reactor at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Luis Felipe became a scientist at JHU right away, but was soon recruited by Princeton University in 2009 to spent four years as a visiting scientist at The Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA. Since his return to Princeton in 2013, Luis Felipe has won few awards in plasma physics and nuclear fusion including the Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Award in 2015, the General Atomics Torkil Jensen Award in 2016, the President’s International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI) award from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2018 and a Measurement Innovation Award from DOE also in 2018. Luis Felipe has lead experiments at the four major fusion experiments in the USA (NSTX, C-Mod, DIII-D and MST), and designs and builds nuclear fusion diagnostics for universities and national laboratories in the USA, China, France, Japan, and the international community at ITER. He has written and published more than 140 scientific articles having more than 1700 citations. Luis Felipe lives in Princeton, NJ with his family.

Arati Dasgupta

Arati Dasgupta is the head of the Atomic Physics and Ionization Kinetics Section in the Radiation Hydrodynamics Branch of the Plasma Physics Division at the Naval research Laboratory (NRL). Presently she works on non-local thermodynamic equilibrium atomic and plasma modeling and simulation of High Energy Density (HED) plasma experiments, such as the Sandia National Laboratories multi-keV Z-pinch plasma radiation sources, various high atomic number (Z_A) radiation sources at the National Ignition Facility, and radiation physics for high Z_A elements on the NRL NIKE laser in support of ICF. Her interdisciplinary atomic and plasma physics research spans pulsed power radiation sources, inertial confinement fusion (ICF), laser-matter interaction, astrophysics and lighting. She is a member of several science panels, reviewer of several award selection committees including DOE’s E.O. Lawrence award and serve on several advisory committees including DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC). She is an executive member of the IEEE Plasma Science Applications Committee (PSAC). She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, Fellow of the Washington Academy of Sciences, has served on several education and program committees of the APS Divisions of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics and Plasma Physics, chaired Women in Plasma Physics Committee of the APS/DPP (2013-2015), and chaired the Women in Science and Engineering Committee at NRL (2008-2012). She has provided an essay on invitation to the book “Blazing the Trail: Essays by Leading Women in Science” to inspire young women to pursue career in science. Recently (2016) she presented a public lecture at the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse as part of their yearly Public Lecture Series featuring prominent women in physics, astronomy, and engineering.

Paul Keiter

Paul Keiter is an Associate Research Scientist in the Center for Laser Experimental Astrophysics Research at the University of Michigan. His research is focused on studying physics of interest in astrophysical systems with high-energy-density physics. Topics of research include radiation hydrodynamics and spectroscopy. When not working, he is kept busy by his two daughters.