I'm Oak Nelson, a research scientist at Columbia University. I study how the way we operate a fusion plasma shapes the heat loads, structural limits, and design of future fusion power plants, and I build tools that help physicists and engineers make those decisions together.
Engineering tools often treat the plasma as a fixed heat source, and plasma models usually stop at the plasma's edge. My work sits at that interface, where the plasma operating regime becomes an engineering design variable.
Negative triangularity, a reversed plasma shape that avoids the edge instabilities that send bursts of heat onto reactor walls.
Design optimization that accounts for physics uncertainty, mission-specific requirements, and how plants will change over decades of operation.
Probabilistic heat-load boundary conditions, and plasma pulses designed around the thermal limits of the machine.
Project-based design courses where students integrate physics, thermal, structural, and cost constraints into a single fusion plant design.
The Ph.D., master's, and undergraduate students I have had the privilege to advise, and what they have gone on to do.
Building community for students and early-career scientists, and sharing fusion with the public.