Team

geert.verdoolaege@ugent.be

Geert Verdoolaege leads the research unit. His research activities comprise Bayesian probability and information geometry with a range of applications to fusion experiments. He also teaches master courses on plasma physics and continuum mechanics.

sven.vanloo@ugent.be

Sven Van Loo works in kinetic and MHD modeling with applications to astrophysical and fusion plasmas. He also teaches general physics to engineering students.

wolfgang.biel@ugent.be

Wolfgang Biel is Deputy Director of the Institute of Energy and Climate Research - Plasma Physics (IEK-4) at the Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany. At UGent, he is the lecturer of the partim Fusion Technology in the course Plasma Technology and Fusion Technology.

kristel.crombe@ugent.be

Kristel Crombé is a researcher at the Laboratory for Plasma Physics of the Royal Military Academy in Brussels. Her research concerns radio-frequency wave heating in the W7-X stellarator and ion-cyclotron wall conditioning. At UGent, she supervises several master and PhD students.

azarakhsh.jalalvand@ugent.be

Azarakhsh (Aza) Jalalvand is a researcher at Princeton University working on artificial intelligence in fusion. At UGent, he collaborates on multiple research projects and contributes educational modules for the fusion master students.

roger.jaspers@ugent.be

Roger Jaspers is Associate Professor at the faculty Technical Physics at the Technical University Eindhoven (TU/e) in the Netherlands. At UGent, he teaches the course Magnetohydrodynamics of Plasmas.

jerome.alhage@ugent.be

With a background in electrical engineering, Jerome Alhage is working on the analysis of edge-localized modes in fusion plasmas using probability theory and machine learning. As a teaching assistant, he is involved in the lab sessions for the course Plasma Physics and a general physics course for engineers.

leonardo.caputo@ugent.be

The research of Leonardo Caputo is focused on predictive maintenance for fusion devices. Current applications involve detection of damage in plasma-facing components and failure analysis in the JET Ohmic heating circuit.

emmazoe.casier@ugent.be

Emma Zoe Casier works on statistical modeling of experimental and simulated data, using information-geometric methods. She is also a teaching assistant supporting both bachelor and master courses.

karina.chinasfuentes@UGent.be

Karina is a nanotechnology and nuclear-fusion engineer specialising in data analysis and machine learning. At Infusion, in collaboration with CEA, she applies integrated data analysis to enable real-time control of fusion plasmas.

jeffrey.derycke@ugent.be

As a physicist, Jeffrey De Rycke is doing PhD research concerning integrated data analysis using Bayesian probabilistic methods for DEMO diagnostics. He also works on Bayesian experimental design.

joseph.hall@ugent.be

Joseph Hall studied mathematics and specialized in theoretical physics and data science. He currently works on advanced statistical methods for energy confinement scaling in tokamaks.

sebastian.konewko@ugent.be

Sebastian Konewko is a theoretical physicist and mechanical engineer. He currently works on modeling of plasma instabilities in fusion devices.

nastasija.petkovic@ugent.be

Nastasija Petkovic has a background in Nuclear Fusion and Engineering Physics. She is pursuing a joint PhD between Ghent University and CTU in Prague. Her research focuses on probabilistic modeling of plasma fluctuations at SOL and divertor regions in COMPASS tokamak.

ce.wang@ugent.be

Ce Wang is developing a kinetic parallel transport code for fusion devices. He works on modeling the transport of the boundary plasma in tokamaks and the resulting erosion of the divertor target.

giorgio.sonnino@ugent.be

Giorgio Sonnino is a senior scientist specialized in the thermodynamics of irreversible processes, stochastic theory and nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, with applications to analysis of thermodynamic processes in tokamak plasmas.

guido.vanoost@ugent.be

Guido Van Oost is an emeritus professor of the research unit, founder of the international FUSION-EP master program and with research activities in fusion and plasma waste treatment.

yangyang.zhang@ugent.be

Dr. Yangyang Zhang is a researcher at SWIP (Chengdu, China) working on equilibrium reconstruction in tokamaks and stellarators, as well as diagnostic optimization. He collaborates on several research projects at UGent.

hao.wu@ugent.be

Hao Wu obtained the PhD from UGent in January 2026. He worked on integrated analysis of fusion data using Bayesian probability theory, for estimating the tungsten impurity concentration on WEST, based on soft X-ray spectroscopy and other measurements.