ESC research group news

On February 11 it’s the ‘International day of women and girls in science’. A perfect occasion to put Loes Jansen in the spotlights. Since the summer of 2024 Loes works as a PhD candidate in the Energy Systems and Control group at DIFFER’s Fusion Energy department. What do escape rooms have to do with her career?

Fusion energy could provide clean, limitless electricity, but keeping fusion energy devices stable is incredibly complex. Scientists working on the UK fusion machine MAST Upgrade and at the Dutch research institute DIFFER have made important progress in two key areas.

International experiments at the UK fusion machine MAST Upgrade in Culham, led by Dutch researchers, demonstrate how the innovative 'Super-X' design offers major advantages in handling the heat exhaust of fusion energy machines. Successfully managing the exhaust is one of the major hurdles in realising fusion energy.

Future fusion power plants require a careful balancing act to protect their insides from the hot plasma exhaust. DIFFER control engineer Thomas Bosman designed and tuned a control algorithm for this thorny problem in only three experimental shots.

Postdoctoral researcher Lizan Kivits has won the prestigious DISC PhD Thesis Award 2024, securing the 3rd prize for her outstanding research. The award was presented by Prof. Dr. Ir. Ming Cao on behalf of the Dutch Institute for Systems and Control (DISC) committee during the annual Benelux Meeting on 20 March 2025.