Joaquim Loizu was born in Barcelona, Spain. He graduated in Physics at EPFL, carrying out his Master thesis project at the Center for Bio-Inspired Technology, Imperial College London, on the theoretical and numerical study of the biophysics of light-sensitive neurons.

In 2013, he obtained his PhD from EPFL and was awarded the European Physical Society Plasma Physics PhD Research Award. His thesis focused on the theory of plasma-wall interactions and their effect on the mean flows and turbulence in magnetized plasmas. 

In 2014, he became a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, spending one year at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and three years at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasma Physics. During this time, he worked on three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamics, studying the formation of singular currents at rational surfaces, magnetic islands, and magnetic field line chaos, and their implications for stellarators. 

In 2018, he joined the Swiss Plasma Center as a Scientist and Lecturer. 

In 2020, he was awarded the Young Scientist Prize in Plasma Physics from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.

In 2022 he became a PI of the Simons Collaboration on Hidden Symmetries and Fusion Energy (2022-2025).

In 2025, he became MER (Maître d'Enseignement et Recherche) at EPFL.

In 2026, he became Head of Theory at the Swiss Plasma Center. He also became the PI for the European Collaboration on Stellarator Optimization funded by Eurofusion (2026-2027).

My current research interests include stellarators, MHD equilibrium and stability, magnetic reconnection, non-neutral plasmas, plasma sheaths, plasma turbulence, and plasma transport in chaotic magnetic fields.

I have played an important role in the development of a number of simulation codes (GBS for plasma fluid turbulence, SPEC and SPECTRE for stellarator equilibria, FENNECS for non-neutral plasmas, ODISEE for plasma-wall interactions). I have also played an important role in the design and operation of basic plasma physics experiments at the Swiss Plasma Center, such as the Trapped Electron Experiment T-REX or the Polaris stellarator.