IPP scientist receives Helmholtz Doctoral Award 2020

Dr. Valeria Perseo awarded for outstanding performance during her doctorate

May 17, 2021

Dr. Valeria Perseo from Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald has been awarded the Helmholtz Doctoral Prize 2020 for her doctoral thesis on “Impurity flow measurements with Coherence-Imaging Spectroscopy at Wendelstein 7-X”.

She is one of a total of six award winners from the Helmholtz Association’s six research fields who completed their doctorates with outstanding results and distinguished themselves through scientific excellence and personal commitment.

Valeria Perseo, born in 1991 in Desio, Italy, in her doctoral thesis dealt with the flows in the edge of a fusion plasma: to this end, she built and tested two measuring systems based on the principle of coherence-imaging spectroscopy. After finding a solution for well-known weaknesses of the demanding measurement procedure, she operated the systems at the Wendelstein 7-X fusion research device at Greifswald. With their help, particle flows in the outer edge of a fusion plasma can be observed in detail. Valeria Perseo’s work permits a better understanding of  the flow patterns and thus opens up new possibilities for optimising the exhaust of particles and heat from a fusion plasma. This can contribute significantly to increasing the service life of plasma-facing components in a future fusion power plant.

With the PhD Prize, awarded for the first time in 2013, the Helmholtz Association, to which IPP is scientifically associated, recognises outstanding achievements during the doctoral phase. The award is intended to encourage students to pursue a scientific career path. For this purpose, financial support for a six-month research stay abroad is available in addition to the doctoral award, which is endowed with 5000 euros.

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