Fusing Her Research Interests

For Libby Tolman, physics was love at first sight: “the most intellectually beautiful thing I’d ever encountered.” The practical application of fusion energy has since helped Tolman, a Kurt Forrest Fellow in physics, to focus her PhD. But, she notes, “The funding outlook for fusion research is very uncertain, so it was important to me to create a path in graduate school which allowed me to mix strong experience in practical fusion research with work in areas of plasma physics that are not so strongly tied to fusion funding.” Tolman’s thesis will be advised, cross-departmentally, by a plasma theorist who works on astrophysical phenomena, Nuno Loureiro, in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. “Having an MIT fellowship,” Tolman says, “has helped give me the flexibility to follow this path.”