Mario Manuel

Scientist, General Atomics

Mario J.-E. Manuel obtained B.S. degrees in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Physics, and Astronomy from the University of Washington in 2006, an S.M. degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from MIT (2008) and a Ph.D. degree in Applied Plasma Physics from MIT (2013). His doctoral research at MIT was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Richard D. Petrasso in the High-Energy-Density Physics group within the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. The experiments for his dissertation, “Rayleigh-Taylor-Induced Electromagnetic Fields in Laser-Produced Plasmas,” were conducted at the LLE Omega Laser Facility as part of the National Laser Users Facility program funded by the National Nuclear Security Administration.

In 2014, he received the American Physical Society’s Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award “for first observations of Rayleigh–Taylor-induced magnetic fields in laser-produced plasmas using both x rays and mono-energetic 14.7 MeV protons to accurately measure the amplitude and evolution of the induced fields.”

Upon graduation from MIT in 2013, Dr. Manuel joined R. P. Drake’s group at the University of Michigan and was awarded an Einstein Fellowship, through the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, to “explore astrophysical hydrodynamics in the laboratory.” In 2017, he joined General Atomics in San Diego where he is focusing his research on the effects of external magnetic fields in HED systems, specifically their effect on hydrodynamic instabilities and laser–plasma interactions.