Dr. Sara E. Ferry
Seminar Information
Fusion power has long promised a new pathway to abundant clean energy, but it faces immense technical challenges that have led to the common joke that it will always be several decades away However, the private fusion sector has been undergoing an unprecedented rise in number of companies, technology maturity, and funding over the past five years. Meanwhile, the U.S. federal government has committed to a new vision to realize commercial fusion energy in the short term with the Bold Decadal Vision for fusion announced by the Biden White House in 2022. In this seminar, we will discuss the breakthroughs that make this such an exciting time in fusion, as well as the engineering challenges that underscore the technological difficulty that will be involved in scaling research-scale devices to robust power plants. Select fusion technology projects currently underway at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center will be highlighted as examples of near-term research efforts aimed at bridging these technical gaps.
Dr. Sara Ferry is a research scientist and the fusion materials and components group leader at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. She leads research efforts focused on tritium breeding in molten fluoride salts, more accurate modeling of fusion fuel cycles, understanding and mitigating proliferation risks associated with fusion technology, machine-learning enabled discovery and development of novel high-entropy alloys, disruption-tolerant vacuum vessels for magnetic fusion energy, and non-destructive evaluation of radiation damage in nuclear materials. She has also co-chaired multiple U.S. fusion technology R&D roadmapping activities, most recently for fusion breeding blankets, fusion fuel cycles, and fusion materials.