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Administrative data

Paolo Ricci

paolo.ricci@epfl.ch http://spc.epfl.ch/

EPFL SB SPC-TH
PPB 318 (Bâtiment PPB)
Station 13
1015 Lausanne

Paolo Ricci earned his Master's degree in nuclear engineering at the Politecnico di Torino, Turin (Italy) in 2000. His doctoral studies were conducted at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, with focus on kinetic simulation of magnetic reconnection in the Earth's magnetotail. He spent two-and-a-half years as a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth College Department of Physics and Astronomy, where he worked on gyrokinetic simulations of the Z pinch. He joined the EPFL Swiss Plasma Center, as a EURATOM fellow in 2006, was named Tenure Track Assistant Professor in June 2010, Associate Professor in August 2016, and Full Professor in October 2023. He is the Director of the Swiss Plasma Center and he heads its theory group. Paolo Ricci is the recipient of the 2016 Section de Physique Teaching Prize, of the 2021 Craie d'Or award from the EPFL physics bachelor students, and of the 2021 Polysphère d'Or award from AGEPoly.

Ph.D. Theses

Here you can find
the list of Ph.D. theses.

Research interests

Numerical simulation of laboratory plasmas and plasmas for fusion, plasma turbulence and instabilities, basic plasma physics, large-scale numerical simulations, numerical methods for plasma physics.

Selected publications

Ph.D. Theses

Infoscience

Conference presentation

Teaching & PhD

PhD Students

Micol Bassanini, Tyler John-Anselme Benkley, Pablo Diaz Lobo, Samuel Ernst, Andrea Fedrigucci, Sergio García Herreros, Brenno Jason Sanzio Peter De Lucca, Jacob Emil Mencke, Zeno Tecchiolli

Past EPFL PhD Students

Carrie Beadle (2021), António João Caeiro Heitor Coelho (2024), André Calado Coroado (2021), Baptiste Jimmy Frei (2023), Maurizio Giacomin (2022), Antoine Cyril David Hoffmann (2024), Rogério Jorge (2019), Joaquim Loizu (2013), Annamaria Mosetto (2014), Paola Paruta (2018), Fabio Riva (2017), Louis Nicolas Stenger (2026), Christoph Wersal (2017)

Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector

Margherita Guido (2026)

Courses

Advanced physics I (mechanics)

PHYS-100

Introductory Physics I (advanced) covers the mechanics of point particles and solids. The purpose of the course is to develop the ability to describe physics phenomena by using mathematical tools.

Magnetic confinement

PHYS-731

To provide an overview of the fundamentals of magnetic confinement (MC) of plasmas for fusion.The different MC configurations are presented, with a description of their operating regimes.The basic elements of particle & energy transport, of plasma-wall interaction & of burning plasma are introduced.

Physics IV

PHYS-206

Wave physics and introduction to special relativity.

Ph.D. theses, M.Sc. theses, and semester projects

The lists of past Ph.D. theses,
M.Sc. theses , and
semester projects are available.