Dr. Marco De Baar

Biography

Marco de Baar is a full professor and chair of Plasma Fusion Operation Control at the Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). His main scientific interest is in the control of nuclear fusion plasmas, with a focus on controlling magnetohydrodynamic modes for plasma stability and optimizing the current density profile for performance enhancement. He explores aspects of control loops, including actuator and sensor design as well as advanced control-oriented modeling. Marco is particularly interested in the operational remote maintenance of nuclear fusion reactors. His research emphasizes understanding and controlling turbulent plasma in fusion reactor tokamaks, which are hot, charged, and magnetized gases. Fusion energy presents a clean, safe, and large-scale energy source, and the challenge remains to realize commercially viable fusion energy while safeguarding the reactor walls from the hot fusion exhaust. He leads the DIFFER research program aiming to manage heat loads in plasma and control energy transfer to the reactor walls. With a background in physics, Marco combines the physics of unique phenomena with engineering principles to optimize the overall system performance. He received his PhD in physics from TU/e and holds an MSc in experimental physics from the University of Utrecht. In addition to his role at TU/e, he heads fusion research at FOM institute DIFFER and represents the Netherlands in the European fusion research consortium EUROfusion.

Research Interests

Experience