Mantsinen , Mervi Johanna

Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC - CNS)

Engineering Sciences

I graduated in Technical Physics at Helsinki University of Technology (HUT), now Aalto University, Finland in 1992. I carried out my research in the Plasma Physics and Fusion Group of HUT until 1995 when I moved to the JET Joint European Torus, the largest tokamak in the world, located in the UK. At JET, I worked as Ion Cyclotron Resonance Frequency (ICRF) Physics Expert, Scientific Coordinator, Responsible Officer for several large modelling codes and Physicist in Charge as well as trained as Session Leader of JET experiments. My thesis for the degree of Doctor of Science in Technology at HUT in 1999 was based on my research at JET. In 2003 I became Deputy Leader of Task Force Heating and Current Drive at JET, with approx. 80 members at several research institutions across Europe. In 2006 I joined the ICRF group of the Asdex Upgrade tokamak, Max-Planck-Institute for Plasma Physics, Germany and in October 2013 I was appointed ICREA Research Professor at BSC.


Research interests

My research is directed towards contributing to the development of nuclear fusion as a source of energy and, in particular, to the ITER project. ITER is an international nuclear fusion R&D project, which is building the world’s largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor in France. ITER aims to demonstrate that fusion energy is scientifically and technologically feasible. My research is focused in the numerical modelling of experiments in magnetically confined fusion devices in preparation for ITER operation, working towards the objectives of the European fusion research programme EUROfusion for Horizon 2020 in close collaboration with ITER, International Tokamak Physics Activity, EUROfusion and the Spanish national fusion laboratory CIEMAT. My overall objective is to enhance the modelling capabilities by code validation and optimization, with the ultimate goal of helping improve the performance of ITER and future fusion reactors.

Selected publications

– Garcia J, Challis C, Gallart D, Garzotti L, Goerler T, King D, Mantsinen M & JET Contributors 2017, ‘Challenges in the extrapolation from DD to DT plasmas: experimental analysis and theory based predictions for JET-DT’, Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion, vol. 59, p. 014023.

– Schneider M, Johnson T, Dumont R, Eriksson J, Eriksson L-G, Giacomelli L, Girardo J-B, Hellsten T, Khilkevitch E, Kiptily VG, Koskela T, Mantsinen M et al. 2016, ‘Modelling third harmonic ion cyclotron acceleration of deuterium beams for JET fusion product studies experiments’, Nucl. Fusion, vol. 56, p. 112022.

– Girardo J-B, Sharapov S, Boom J, Dumont R, Eriksson J, Fitzgerald M, Garbet X, Hawkes N, Kiptily V, Lupelli I, Mantsinen M et al.  2016, ‘Stabilization of sawteeth with third harmonic deuterium ICRF-accelerated beam in JET plasmas’, Phys. Plasmas, vol. 23, p. 012505.


Selected research activities

Fusion group leader at BSC (8 members & 1.01 M€ funding additional to BSC & ICREA since 2014).

One of the 4 Scientific Coordinators (SC) of EUROfusion flagship experiment ‘Hybrid Scenario for DT’ at the JET tokamak, UK. Jointly responsible for preparation, experimental set-up, execution, follow-up analysis, modelling, and publication of the results. Involved the coordination of an international team of ca. 80 scientists, 20 experimental sessions & 25 team meetings.

SC of Task ‘Fast ion modelling (stability & transport)’ of EUROfusion Medium Size Tokamak Work Package. Organized 4 task meetings with ca. 25 invited talks.

Supervisor of 2 Master & 2 PhD students (UAB & UPC, Spain).

Evaluator of 1 PhD thesis (Aalto University, Finland).

Member of EUROfusion HPC Allocation Committee for Marconi-Fusion, Italy.

Member of Program Committee of EPS Plasma Physics Conf. 2016, Belgium.

Member of Evaluation Panel NT-3 of Swedish Research Council.

Expert of Spanish National Agency of Evaluation.

Reviewer for Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, Nuclear Fusion, SpringerPlus and EUROfusion.