Scientist, Model Validation and Experimental Data Analysis

The role

You will validate predictive plasma models against W7-X experimental data. You will reconstruct plasma states from diagnostic measurements and use these findings to inform the design of the Alpha and Stellaris machines.

What you will do

• Validate predictive plasma models against W7-X experimental data
• Reconstruct the plasma state from real diagnostic measurements
• Work with raw and pre-processed diagnostic data
• Validate against databases of discharges across W7-X configurations
• Act as a technical interface to W7-X and IPP
• Feed validation back into design for Alpha's diagnostic set
• Extend the modeling stack including mappers and synthetic diagnostics
• Help stand up the between-shot analysis loop for Alpha

Required qualifications

• PhD in plasma physics, fusion science, or a closely related discipline
• Hands-on experience with experimental data from a magnetic confinement device
• Experience reconstructing the plasma state from measurements
• Strong grounding in transport, equilibrium, and heating physics
• Rigorous about uncertainty
• Comfortable writing and maintaining scientific software
• Can communicate effectively with physicists, diagnosticians, engineers, and experimentalists
• Self-directed
• Willing to travel regularly to Greifswald, and later to the Alpha site

Nice to have

• W7-X experience - operations, diagnostics, or data analysis, and familiarity with the W7-X data archive and Minerva
• Stellarator physics background
• Bayesian inference, uncertainty quantification, or machine learning applied to experimental data
• Experience with integrated modeling and transport codes (FUSE, OMFIT, ASTRA, TRANSP, FUSE, JINTRAC, or similar) and with neoclassical (SFINCS, DKES, NEO) or gyrokinetic (GENE, CGYRO, GX, or similar) c
• Julia and Python programming
• Familiarity with the IMAS data model
• Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools
• A track record of published validation studies or successful experimental proposals

About the company

Proxima Fusion is Europe’s fastest-growing fusion company and the continent’s best-funded fusion player, and the first spin-out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP). They are developing the hardware and infrastructure needed to deliver the world’s first commercial stellarator fusion power plant.