Sunjae Lee
Incoming M.S./Ph.D. student in Applied Physics (Plasma Physics) at Columbia University in the City of New York, beginning in Fall 2026.
I received my B.S. in Computer Science & Engineering and Physics from Seoul National University in February 2026. My research focuses on magnetic-confinement fusion, especially kinetic MHD, negative triangularity plasmas, and AI-based high-performance simulations.
Feel free to reach out.
Education
Columbia University in the City of New York
M.S./Ph.D. in Applied Physics (Plasma Physics) | Beginning Fall 2026
Seoul National University
B.S. in Computer Science & Engineering and Physics | Mar 2021 - Feb 2026
M.S. in Nuclear Engineering | Mar 2026 - Jul 2026
Research Experiences
Seoul National University - Department of Nuclear Engineering
3 Dimensional Stellarator & Tokamak Lab, Prof. Jong-Kyu Park | Undergraduate Research Intern | Sep 2024 - Present
- Conducting stability analysis of negative triangularity plasmas using ideal, drift-kinetic, and full kinetic MHD models with the GPEC suite.
- Studying kinetic stabilization, trapped-particle resonance, and the second-stability region of low-n modes in DIII-D NT plasmas.
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL)
Research Student, SNU-PPPL Summer Collaboration | Jul 2025 - Aug 2025
- Worked on nonlinear 3D MHD modeling, transport analysis, and pilot-plant design for NSTX-U and KSTAR plasmas.
- Learned and applied BALOO for edge-stability analysis in NT and K-DEMO-related studies.
Seoul National University - Department of Nuclear Engineering
Plasma & Ion Beam Laboratory, Prof. Y. S. Hwang | Undergraduate Research Intern | Sep 2023 - Aug 2024
- Designed and implemented a database for VEST using the IMAS-HSDS data architecture.
- Developed VAFT for automated post-processing and analysis of experimental diagnostic shot data.
Selected Publications, Presentations & Projects
IMAS Platform for VEST and Operation Analysis
H.-S. Yun†, S. J. Lee†, L. Jung, et al. (2025).
Developing an IMAS-Compatible Platform for the University-Level Tokamak VEST and Its Application in Operating Characteristics Analysis.
Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion (Nov 2025)
APS-DPP 2025 Poster
Kinetic MHD Stability of Low-n Modes in Negative Triangularity Plasmas.
67th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, Long Beach, CA, USA (Nov 2025).
29th Workshop on MHD Stability Control
Kinetic Stability of Negative-Triangularity Plasmas.
Princeton, NJ, USA (Jul 2025).
Perturbed Equilibrium Code Hackathon
Columbia Fusion Research Center.
Reproduced DCON's ideal-MHD stability solver in Julia and developed coordinate-transformation routines for equilibrium-based stability analysis.
Code (Jul 2025)
Korean Physical Society 2025 Spring Meeting
Standardized Data Infrastructure for Tokamak: Implementation in VEST.
Seoul, Korea (Apr 2025).
High-Performance CUDA Programming Project
Accelerator Programming Summer School.
Built parallel GPU programs in CUDA/C++ and analyzed performance using Nsight Systems.
Code (Aug 2024)
3rd International Fusion and Plasma Conference
Improvements of Database System and Analysis Suite in VEST.
Seoul, Korea (Jun 2024).