Fatima Ebrahimi

• phone: 609-243-2637
• email: ebrahimi@pppl.gov
• personal website

Fatima Ebrahimi is a Principal Research Physicist at the PPPL Theory Department and an Affiliated Research Scholar at the Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University. Dr. Ebrahimi received her Ph.D. in Plasma Physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003.

Upon receiving her Ph.D., she was a Research Associate at the Alfven Laboratory, Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden for one year, and then was a Research Associate and Research Scientist with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Frontier Center for Magnetic Self-Organization in Laboratory and Astrophysical Plasmas (CMSO) at the University of Wisconsin. Before her Research appointment at Princeton University in 2013, she was a Research Assistant Professor at the University of New Hampshire.

Her research interests span from magnetically confined fusion plasmas to flow-driven plasmas, such as accretion disks. Her primary research experience has been in the field of theoretical and global-computational extended magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), with wide applications to astrophysical, laboratory and fusion plasmas. Her main research interests include: studies of MHD stability and current-dive in fusion plasmas, momentum transport from current-driven tearing and flow-driven magnetorotational instabilities, dynamo in magnetically and flow-dominated self-organized systems, and magnetic reconnection in fusion/laboratory and astrophysical plasmas. She has written many papers over a wide range of topics, published in a number of leading peer-reviewed journals. She has many years of successful experience working with experimentalists at major university and national plasma physics laboratories, including Madison Symmetric Torus (MST), Madison plasma dynamo exp., NSTX/NSTX-U, and PPPL MRI experiment. She is the topical science group leader for theory/modeling of Solenoid-free Start-up & Ramp-up in NSTX-U.

Dr. Ebrahimi has been the PI of several DOE and NSF grants and has served on multiple panels. She also served on the APS-DPP program committee in 2011 and 2019. She is an elected Member-At-Large of the APS Topical Group in Plasma Astrophysics (GPAP), 2018-2021, was a member of APS-DPP Executive Committee (2013-2016), a member of Executive committee for the international fusion theory Sherwood conference (2014-2017), local host for Sherwood conference in 2019, and program committee member for U.S. Magnetic Fusion Research (MFR) Strategic Directions, 2017-2018.

• "Dynamo-driven plasmoid formation from a current-sheet instability"
  F. Ebrahimi, Phys. Plasmas 23, 120705 (2016)
• "Plasmoids Formation During Simulations of Coaxial Helicity Injection in the National Spherical Torus Experiment"
  F. Ebrahimi & R. Raman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 205003 (2015)
• "Helicity-flux-driven alpha effect in laboratory and astro-physical plasmas"
  F. Ebrahimi & A. Bhattacharjee, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 125003 (2014)

• Princeton Center for Heliophysics
• Innovation (2016) : Of Plasmoids and Tokamaks!
• DOE highlight, Nov 2016 : Plasmoids formation in a laboratory and large-volume flux closure during simulations of Coaxial Helicity Injection in NSTX-U
• APS-DPP (2016) press release : Launching Fusion Reactions Without a Central Magnet, or Solenoid!
• Science Newsline (Jun., 2016) : PPPL Physicist Conducts Experiments Indicating Efficiency of Fusion Start-up Technique
• Gizmodo (Jun., 2015) : Plasmoids Could Change the Way We Create Thermonuclear Fusion
• PPPL News : PPPL physicist uncovers clues to mechanism behind magnetic reconnection