This is a list of journal publications, theses and conference proceedings that I have authored. They amount to a total of 44 peer-reviewed journal papers, 4 conference proceedings, and 2 theses.
First-authored Papers
Physics of Plasmas, 2024
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, N. T. Howard, A. Saltzman, L. Shoji, T. Body, D. J. Battaglia, J. W. Hughes, J. Candy, G. M. Staebler, A. J. Creely, “Core performance predictions in projected SPARC first-campaign plasmas with nonlinear CGYRO“, Phys. Plasmas 31, 062501 (2024).
♦ Editor’s Pick at Physics of Plasmas AIP
♦ Also available as P. Rodriguez-Fernandez et al. arXiv:2403.15633 (2024)
Nuclear Fusion, 2024
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, N.T. Howard, A. Saltzman, S. Kantamneni, J. Candy, C. Holland, M. Balandat, S. Ament and A.E. White, “Enhancing predictive capabilities in fusion burning plasmas through surrogate-based optimization in core transport solvers“, Nucl. Fusion 64 076034 (2024).
♦ Also available as P. Rodriguez-Fernandez et al. arXiv:2312.12610 (2023)
Nuclear Fusion, 2022
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, N.T. Howard and J. Candy, “Nonlinear gyrokinetic predictions of SPARC burning plasma profiles enabled by surrogate modeling“, Nucl. Fusion 62, 076036 (2022).
♦ Press releases: MIT News, PSFC News, Phys.org
♦ Among the 10 most read papers of Nuclear Fusion IOP (May 2022 – September 2022)
♦ University Research News Headline on the U.S. DoE Office of Science homepage
Reviews of Modern Plasma Physics, 2022
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, C. Angioni and A.E. White, “Local Transport Dynamics of Cold Pulses in Tokamak Plasmas“, Rev. Mod. Plasma Phys. 6, 10 (2022).
Nuclear Fusion, 2022
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, A.J. Creely, M.J. Greenwald, D. Brunner, S.B. Ballinger, C.P. Chrobak, D.T. Garnier, R. Granetz, Z.S. Hartwig, N.T. Howard, “Overview of the SPARC physics basis towards the exploration of burning-plasma regimes in high-field, compact tokamaks“, Nucl. Fusion 62, 042003 (2022).
♦ Among the 10 most read papers of Nuclear Fusion IOP (March 2022 – present)
Journal of Plasma Physics, 2020
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, N. T. Howard, M. J. Greenwald, A. J. Creely, J. W. Hughes, J. C. Wright, C. Holland, Y. Lin, F. Sciortino and the SPARC team, “Predictions of core plasma performance for the SPARC tokamak“, Journal of Plasma Physics, 86(5), 865860503 (2020).
♦ Press releases: Special Issue, The New York Times
Physics of Plasmas, 2019
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, A. E. White, N. T. Howard, B. A. Grierson, L. Zeng, X. Yuan, G. M. Staebler, M. E. Austin, T. Odstrcil, T. L. Rhodes, F. Sciortino, J. E. Rice, K. Thome, C. Angioni, E. Fable and O. Meneghini, “Predict-first Experiments and Modeling of Perturbative Cold Pulses in the DIII-D Tokamak“, Phys. Plasmas 26, 062503 (2019).
Nuclear Fusion, 2019
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, A. E. White, N. T. Howard, B. A. Grierson, X. Yuan, G. M. Staebler, J. E. Rice, C. Angioni, N. M. Cao, A. J. Creely, E. Fable, M. J. Greenwald, A. E. Hubbard, J. W. Hughes, J. H. Irby and F. Sciortino, “Perturbative Transport Modeling of Cold-Pulse Dynamics in Alcator C-Mod Ohmic Plasmas“, Nucl. Fusion 59, 066017 (2019).
Physical Review Letters, 2018
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, A. E. White, N. T. Howard, B. A. Grierson, G. M. Staebler, J. E. Rice, X. Yuan, N. M. Cao, M. J. Greenwald, A. E. Hubbard, J. W. Hughes, J. H. Irby and F. Sciortino, “Explaining cold-pulse dynamics in tokamak plasmas using local turbulent transport models“, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 075001 (2018).
♦ Press releases: MIT News, EuropaPress, Xataka
♦ In the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric
Fusion Science and Technology, 2018
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, A. E. White, A. J. Creely, M. J. Greenwald, N. T. Howard, F. Sciortino and J. C. Wright, “VITALS: A surrogate-based optimization framework for the accelerated validation of plasma transport codes“, Fusion Technol. 74:1-2, 65-76 (2018).
Nuclear Fusion, 2017
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, J. E. Rice, N. M. Cao, A. J. Creely, N. T. Howard, A. E. Hubbard, J. H. Irby and A. E. White, “On the correlation between ‘non-local’ effects and intrinsic rotation reversals in Alcator C-Mod“, Nucl. Fusion 57, 074001 (2017).
First-authored Proceedings
IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, 2023
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, N.T. Howard, A. Saltzman, S. Kantamneni, A.E. White, E. Delabie, B. Lomanowski, T.M. Biewer, J. Candy, C. Holland, M.F.F. Nave, J. Garcia, L. Lennholm and JET Contributors, “Core performance predictions with nonlinear gyrokinetics and implications to scope burning-plasma tokamaks”, Proceedings of the 29th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference , IAEA-CN-326 TH P2-19 (2023).
IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, 2021
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, S.B. Ballinger, D.T. Garnier, R. Granetz, M.J. Greenwald, Z.S. Hartwig, N.T. Howard, J.W. Hughes, J.H. Irby, A.Q. Kuang, Y. Lin, E.S. Marmar, C. Rea, J.E. Rice, J.A. Stillerman, R. Sweeney, R.A. Tinguely, D.G. Whyte, J.C. Wright, A.J. Creely, D. Brunner, C.P. Chrobak, R.T. Mumgaard, M.L. Reinke, V. Riccardo, S.D. Scott, B.N. Sorbom, D.V. Yuryev, V.A. Izzo, “Overview of the SPARC physics basis towards the exploration of burning-plasma regimes in high-field, compact tokamaks“, Proceedings of the 28th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, IAEA-CN-286 OV/P-4, 2021.
IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, 2018
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, A. E. White, N. T. Howard, J. E. Rice, F. Sciortino, N. M. Cao, A. J. Creely, M. J. Greenwald, A. E. Hubbard, J. W. Hughes, J. H. Irby, X. Yuan, B. A. Grierson, G. M. Staebler, C. Angioni and E. Fable, “Modeling of Cold-Pulse Propagation and Associated Phenomena in Tokamak Plasmas“, Proceedings of the 27th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (Gandhinagar, India), IAEA-CN-258 EX/10-3, 2018
ASME ORC, 2015
P. Rodriguez-Fernandez and G. Persico, “Automatic design of ORC turbine profiles using evolutionary algorithms“, ASME ORC 3rd Int’l Seminar on ORC Power Systems, Brussels (Belgium), Oct 12-14 2015.
Theses
Ph.D. Thesis, 2019
“Perturbative transport experiments and time-dependent modeling in Alcator C-Mod and DIII-D“, Ph.D. Thesis, MIT (2019).
♦ Del Favero Doctoral Thesis Prize for most innovative thesis in the field, MIT News
M.Sc. Thesis, 2015
“Development of shape-optimization tools for the aerodynamic design of turbomachinery blades“, Proyecto Fin de Carrera, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (2015).
♦ UPM Cátedra Repsol Award for the best Master’s thesis project, ETSII UPM News
Co-authored Papers
N.T. Howard, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, C. Holland and J. Candy, “Prediction of Performance and Turbulence in ITER Burning Plasmas via Nonlinear Gyrokinetic Profile Prediction”, arXiv:2404.17040 (2024).
A.E. White, E. Baglietto, M. Bucci, N.T. Howard and P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, “Fusion Plasma Turbulence Research Beyond the Burning Plasma Era: Perspectives on Transport Model Validation in Fusion and Fission”, Front. Nucl. Eng. 3:1380108 (2024).
N. T. Howard, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, C. Holland, T. Odstrcil, B. Grierson, F. Sciortino, G. McKee, Z. Yan, G. Wang, T. L. Rhodes, A. E. White, J. Candy, and C. Chrystal, “Simultaneous reproduction of experimental profiles, fluxes, transport coefficients, and turbulence characteristics via nonlinear gyrokinetic profile predictions in a DIII-D ITER similar shape plasma“, Phys. Plasmas 31, 032501 (2024).
D.J. Battaglia, T. Body, A.J. Creely, C. Hasse, J. Logan, R.T. Mumgaard, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, N. Schneider, B.N. Sorbom, C. Tse, M. Vernacchia, A.O. Nelson, cfs-energy/cfspopcon: v4.0.0, Zenodo (2023).
R. Bielajew, U. Plank, G.D. Conway, A.E. Hubbard, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, B. Vanovac, C. Yoo, A.E. White and the ASDEX Upgrade Team, “Edge radiated temperature fluctuations across confinement regime transitions in favorable and unfavorable drift configurations at ASDEX Upgrade” Nucl. Fusion 63 126022 (2023).
C. Holland, E.M. Bass, D.M.Orlov, J. McClenaghan, B.C. Lyons, B.A. Grierson, X. Jian, N.T. Howard and P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, “Development of compact tokamak fusion reactor use cases to inform future transport studies” J. Plasma Phys., vol. 89, 905890418 (2023).
P. A. Molina Cabrera, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, T. Görler, M. Bergmann, K. Höfler, S. S. Denk, R. Bielajew, G. D. Conway, C. Yoo, A. E. White, and the ASDEX Upgrade Team, “Isotope effects on energy transport in the core of ASDEX-Upgrade tokamak plasmas: turbulence measurements and model validation” Physics of Plasmas 30, 082304 (2023).
♦ Selected as Editor’s Pick in August 2023, Physics of Plasmas.
J.E. Rice, N.M. Cao, P.H. Diamond, M.J. Greenwald, A.E. Hubbard, E.S. Marmar, M.L. Reinke and P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, “Further Rotation Reversal Studies in C-Mod L-mode Plasmas” Physics of Plasmas 30, 082503 (2023).
M.F.F. Nave, E. Delabie, J. Ferreira, J. Garcia, D. King, M. Lennholm, B. Lomanowski, F. Parra, P.R. Fernandez, J. Bernardo “Isotope effects on intrinsic rotation in hydrogen, deuterium and tritium plasmas“, Nucl. Fusion 63 044002 (2023).
S.M. Gonzalez de Vicente, D. Mazon, M. Xu, S.D. Pinches, R.M. Churchill, A. Dinklage, R. Fischer, A. Murari, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, J.A. Stillerman, J. Vega and G. Verdoolaege, “Summary report of the 4th IAEA Technical Meeting on Fusion Data Processing, Validation and Analysis (FDPVA)“, Nucl. Fusion (2023).
A. Di Siena, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, N. T. Howard, A. Banon Navarro, R. Bilato, T. Görler, E. Poli, G. Merlo, J. Wright, M. J. Greenwald, and F. Jenko, “Predictions of improved confinement in SPARC via energetic particle turbulence stabilization“, Nucl. Fusion 63 036003 (2023).
S.J. Frank, C.J. Perks, A.O. Nelson, T. Qian, S. Jin, A. Cavallaro, A. Rutkowski, A. Reiman, J.P. Freidberg, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez and D. Whyte, “Radiative pulsed L-mode operation in ARC-class reactors“, Nucl. Fusion 62 126036 (2022).
T. Luda, C. Angioni, M. G. Dunne, E. Fable, A. Kallenbach, N. Bonanomi, P. A. Schneider, M. Siccinio, G. Tardini, the ASDEX Upgrade Team, the EUROfusion MST1 Team, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, J. W. Hughes, N. Howard, the Alcator C-Mod Team, L. Frassinetti, S. Saarelma, and JET contributors, “Validation of IMEP on Alcator C-Mod and JET-ILW ELMy H-mode plasmas“, Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 65 034001 (2023).
R. Bielajew, G. D. Conway, M. Griener, T. Happel, K. Hofler, N. T. Howard, A. E. Hubbard, W. McCarthy, P. A. Molina Cabrera, T. Nishizawa, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, D. Silvagni, B. Vanovac, D. Wendler, C. Yoo, A. E. White, and ASDEX Upgrade Team, “Edge turbulence measurements in L-mode and I-mode at ASDEX Upgrade“, Physics of Plasmas 29, 052504 (2022).
J. Mailloux, …, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, … and I. Zychor, “Overview of JET results for optimising ITER operation“, Nucl. Fusion 62 042026 (2022).
M. E. Fenstermacher for the DIII-D Team: J. Abbate, …, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, … and M. Zuin, “DIII-D research advancing the physics basis for optimizing the tokamak approach to fusion energy“, Nucl. Fusion 62 042024 (2022).
U. Stroth, …, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, …, and the EUROfusion MST1 Team, “Progress from ASDEX Upgrade experiments in preparing the physics basis of ITER operation and DEMO scenario development“, Nucl. Fusion 62 042006 (2022).
F. Sciortino, N. T. Howard, T. Odstrčil, M. Austin, I. Bykov, C. Chrystal, S. R. Haskey, J. D. Lore, A. Marinoni, E. S. Marmar, O. Meneghini, C. Paz-Soldan, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, S. P. Smith and K. E. Thome, “Investigation of core impurity transport in DIII-D diverted negative triangularity plasmas”, Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 64 124002 (2022).
G. M. Staebler, M. Knölker, P. B. Snyder, C. Angioni, E. Fable, T. Luda di Cortemiglia, C. Bourdelle, J. Garcia, J. Citrin, M. Marin, HT. Kim, J. Kinsey, CY. Lee, YS. Na, JM. Park, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez and M. Wu, “Advances in prediction of tokamak experiments with theory-based models“, Nucl. Fusion 62 042005 (2022).
N. T. Howard, C. Holland, T. L. Rhodes, J. Candy, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, M. Greenwald, A. E. White and F. Sciortino, “The role of ion and electron-scale turbulence in setting heat and particle transport in the DIII-D ITER baseline scenario“, Nucl. Fusion 61 106002 (2021).
F. Sciortino, N. T. Howard, R. Reksoatmodjo, A. R. Foster, J. W. Hughes, E. S. Marmar, M. A. Miller., S. Mordijck, T. Odstrcil, T. Pütterich, M. L. Reinke, J. E. Rice and P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, “Experimental inference of neutral and impurity transport in Alcator C-Mod using high-resolution X-ray and Ultra-Violet spectra“, Nucl. Fusion 61 126060 (2021).
N. T. Howard, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, C. Holland, J. E. Rice, M. Greenwald, J. Candy, and F. Sciortino, “Gyrokinetic simulation of turbulence and transport in the SPARC tokamak“, Physics of Plasmas 28, 072502 (2021).
J. E. Rice, N. M. Cao, T. Tala, C. Chrystal , M. J. Greenwald, J. W. Hughes, E. S. Marmar, M. L. Reinke, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez and A. Salmi, “Dimensionless parameter scaling of intrinsic torque in C-Mod enhanced confinement plasmas“, Nucl. Fusion 61, 026013 (2021).
A. J. Creely, M. J. Greenwald, S. B. Ballinger, D. Brunner, J. Canik, J. Doody, T. Fülöp, D. T. Garnier, R. Granetz, T. K. Gray, C. Holland, N. T. Howard, J. W. Hughes, J. H. Irby, V. A. Izzo, G. J. Kramer, A. Q. Kuang, B. LaBombard, Y. Lin, B. Lipschultz, N. C. Logan, J. D. Lore, E. S. Marmar, K. Montes, R. T. Mumgaard, C. Paz-Soldan, C. Rea, M. L. Reinke, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, K. Särkimäki, F. Sciortino, S. D. Scott, A. Snicker, P. B. Snyder, B. N. Sorbom, R. Sweeney, R. A. Tinguely, E. A. Tolman, M. Umansky, O. Vallhagen, J. Varje, D. G. Whyte, J. C. Wright, S. J. Wukitch, J. Zhu and the SPARC Team, “Overview of the SPARC Tokamak“, Journal of Plasma Physics 86(5), 865860502 (2020).
J. W. Hughes, N. T. Howard, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, A. J. Creely, A. Q. Kuang, P. B. Snyder, T. M. Wilks, R. Sweeney, and M. Greenwald. 2020. “Projections of H-Mode Access and Edge Pedestal in the SPARC Tokamak“, Journal of Plasma Physics 86(5), 865860504 (2020).
S. D. Scott, G. J. Kramer, E. A. Tolman, A. Snicker, J. Varje, K. Särkimäki, J. C. Wright, and P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, “Fast-Ion Physics in SPARC“, Journal of Plasma Physics 86(5), 865860508 (2020).
F. Sciortino, N. T. Howard, E. S. Marmar, T. Odstrcil, N. M. Cao, R. Dux, A. E. Hubbard, J. W. Hughes, J. H. Irby, Y. Marzouk, L. M. Milanese, M. L. Reinke, J. E. Rice and P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, “Inference of experimental radial impurity transport on Alcator C-Mod: Bayesian parameter estimation and model selection“, Nucl. Fusion 60 126014 (2020).
N. M. Cao, J. E. Rice, P. H. Diamond, A. E. White, M. A. Chilenski, P. C. Ennever, J. W. Hughes, J. Irby, M. L. Reinke, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, and Alcator C-Mod Team, “Evidence and modeling of turbulence bifurcation in L-mode confinement transitions on Alcator C-Mod“, Physics of Plasmas 27, 052303 (2020).
A. J. Creely, L. M. Milanese, E. A. Tolman, J. H. Irby, S. B. Ballinger, S. Frank, A. Q. Kuang, B. L. Linehan, W. McCarthy, K. J. Montes, T. Mouratidis, J. F. Picard, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, A. M. Rosenthal, A. J. Sandberg, F. Sciortino, R. A. Simpson, R. A. Tinguely, M. Zhou, and A. E. White, “Design study of a combined interferometer and polarimeter for a high-field, compact tokamak“, Physics of Plasmas 27, 042516 (2020).
T. Fülop, P. Helander, O. Vallhagen, O. Embréus, L. Hesslow, P. Svensson, A. J. Creely, N. T. Howard and P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, “Effect of plasma elongation on current dynamics during tokamak disruptions“, Journal of Plasma Physics, 86(1), 474860101 (2020).
C. Angioni, E. Fable, F. Ryter, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez and T. Putterich, “The local nature of the plasma response to cold pulses with electron and ion heating at ASDEX Upgrade“, Nucl. Fusion 59, 106007 (2019).
N. M. Cao, J. E. Rice, P. H. Diamond, A. E. White, S. G. Baek, M. A. Chilenski, J. W. Hughes, J. Irby, M. L. Reinke, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez and the Alcator C-Mod Team, “Hysteresis as a Probe of Turbulent Bifurcation in Intrinsic Rotation Reversals on Alcator C-Mod” Nucl. Fusion (2019).
A. J. Creely, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, G. D. Conway, S. J. Freethy, N. T. Howard, A. E. White, and the ASDEX Upgrade Team, “Criteria for the importance of multi-scale interactions in turbulent transport simulations”, Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 61, 085022 (2019).
R. A. Tinguely, A. Rosenthal, R. Simpson, S. B. Ballinger, A. J. Creely, S. Frank, A. Q. Kuang, B. L. Linehan, W. McCarthy, L. M. Milanese, K. J. Montes, T. Mouratidis, J. F. Picard, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, A. J. Sandberg, F. Sciortino, E. A. Tolman, M. Zhou, B. N. Sorbom, Z. S. Hartwig and A. E. White, “Neutron Diagnostics for the Physics of a High-Field, Compact, Q>=1 Tokamak“, Fusion Eng. Des. 143, pp. 212-225 (2019).
G. Persico, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez and A. Romei, “High-Fidelity Shape-Optimization of Non-Conventional Turbomachinery by Surrogate Evolutionary Strategies“, ASME. J. Turbomach. 141(8), 081010-081010-11 (2019).
J. Rice, F. Rosmej, N. Cao, M. Chilenski, N. Howard, A. Hubbard, J. Hughes, J. Irby, Y. Lin, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, S. Wolfe, S. Wukitch, M. Bitter, L. Delgado-Aparicio, K. Hill and M. Reinke, “X-ray Observations of Kβ Emission from Medium Z He-like Ions in C-Mod Tokamak Plasmas“, J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 51, 035702 (2018).
N. T. Howard, C. Holland, A. E. White, M. J. Greenwald, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, J. Candy and A. J. Creely, “Multi-scale gyrokinetic simulations of an Alcator C-Mod, ELM-y H-mode plasma“, Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 60, 014034 (2017).
A. J. Creely, N. T. Howard, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, N. Cao, A. E. Hubbard, J. W. Hughes, J. E. Rice, A. E. White, J. Candy, G. M. Staebler, G. D. Conway, S. J. Freethy and C. Sung, “Validation of nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations of L- and I- mode plasmas on Alcator C-Mod“, Phys. Plasmas 24, 0.56104 (2017).
B. LaBombard, A. Q. Kuang, D. Brunner, I. Faust, R. Mumgaard, M. L. Reinke, J. L. Terry, N. Howard, J. W. Hughes, M. Chilenski, Y. Lin, E. Marmar, J. E. Rice, P. Rodriguez-Fernandez, G. Wallace, D. G. White, S. Wolfe and S. Wukitch, “Impurity screening behavior of the high-field side scrape-off layer in near-double-null configurations: prospect for mitigating plasma-material interactions on RF actuators and first-wall components“, Nucl. Fusion 57, 076021 (2017).