How to Find Out Available Programs/Rankings for a Specific Topic

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tomado
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 11:45 pm

How to Find Out Available Programs/Rankings for a Specific Topic

Post by tomado » Mon Jul 10, 2017 4:04 pm

Hey all,

I'm planning on applying to plasma physics programs across the US (US citizen) and I'm aware of the big name schools in this area: MIT, Princeton, etc. I would like to study fusion - specifically tokamaks - and am somewhat open to theory/experimental (have a small amount of computational experience). My question is: as I survey the landscape, it doesn't seem like many study tokamak-based fusion. I've found MIT and Princeton, and it seems like the others that have specialties in fusion (example: UW Madison) seem to be focused on alternative approaches to fusion - not to mention some of them are just hard to find info about due to poor/not updated web pages.

My ideal would be MIT (I've watched several of their products on fusion and am convinced that the tokamak is the way forward, based on my very limited knowledge, of course) with Princeton being a close second. I like the concept of the ARC/SPARC, and I think I would find it hard to work with "alternative" approaches that appear to be several orders of magnitude behind the tokamak in terms of density, heat, pressure, whatever. (Yes, I know, I 'drank the cool-aid' :lol: )

My question is: how would I go about finding out who studies tokamaks without contacting every institution individually? Are there any good approaches that would be revealing of the quality of a program in this specific area? Does anyone here have any info?

Thanks a lot!

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quizivex
Posts: 1031
Joined: Tue Jan 09, 2007 6:13 am

Re: How to Find Out Available Programs/Rankings for a Specific Topic

Post by quizivex » Tue Jul 11, 2017 1:49 am

This website might be useful. It gives a map and a list of universities with research in fusion and plasma physics. It includes the familiar major programs as well as small university programs that may just have as few as one professor. You might have to dig deeper to identify what research is happening at the smaller programs and who is doing it.

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tomado
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 11:45 pm

Re: How to Find Out Available Programs/Rankings for a Specific Topic

Post by tomado » Tue Jul 11, 2017 9:35 am

That's a great resource! Thanks!



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