SangKyeun Kim, a staff research physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), received the 2026 Early Career Scientist Prize for the Commission on Plasma Physics from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP).
The award comes with a monetary prize, a medal and a certificate. IUPAP recognized Kim "for pioneering control to suppress edge-localized modes and mitigate critical plasma instabilities, using artificial intelligence (AI)-driven control architectures grounded in a rigorous theoretical background of 3D nonlinear magnetohydrodynamics to pave the way for real-time, failure-resilient future fusion reactors."
"I am honored to receive this recognition from IUPAP," said Kim. "This award reflects the strong collaboration and support from my mentors, colleagues and team members at PPPL and partner institutions. Bridging plasma physics with AI-driven control is an important step toward reactor-scale fusion energy, and I am happy to continue contributing to this effort."
