CONNECT Committee Members
Kyle J. Callahan (Chair)
Affiliation: University of California, Irvine
Position: Postdoctoral Researcher
Bio: Kyle is a postdoc at UC-Irvine under an ORISE Fusion Energy Sciences Fellowship. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California- Los Angeles in 2024, and B.S. degree from UC-Irvine in 2019. His thesis work involved experiments at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in La Jolla, CA, and he has helped lead several outreach and education projects, which include facilitating free tutoring to K-12 students in Southeast LA by UCLA graduate students and co-organizing the annual APS DPP 2023 Student Day. He hopes to continue helping with initiatives to combat gender and race-based inequalities in plasma and fusion science, and make the field more inclusive for all. Outside of the lab, he enjoys running, swimming, surfing, and rock climbing.
Laura Zhang (Vice Chair)
Affiliation: Tokamak Energy
Position: Plasma Physicist and Team Lead
Bio: Dr Laura Xin Zhang is a plasma physicist and team leader at Tokamak Energy, responsible for predictive and interpretive integrated plasma modelling, as well as supporting the measurements and interpretation of edge and divertor plasma of the ST40 tokamak. Her research interests includes a range of topics centered around the heat flux exhaust problem in tokamaks, which ranges from experimental to theoretical plasma physics.
Oak Nelson (Past Chair)
Affiliation: Columbia University
Position: Associate Research Scientist
Bio: Oak is a young plasma researcher currently a postdoc at Columbia. He completed his PhD work at Princeton University. He hopes to continue fusion research after graduate school with a focus on teaching and education. Oak was the chair of the Princeton Plasma graduate student committee and is engaged in several diversity and outreach programs, working actively to combat the gender- and race-related inequalities in our field and to make fusion and plasma research accessible to all.