The company will partner with Tor Vergata University in Rome to bring industry experience and expertise to students in a Master in Fusion Energy degree program that organizers believe is the first of its kind in Europe.
OCEM Power Electronics has partnered once again with an innovative academic program that aims to prepare highly skilled graduate students to work in fusion energy by linking research and academic study with the practical challenges of manufacturing a fusion power plant.
The one-year Master in Fusion Energy at Tor Vergata University in Rome will train students for careers in fusion energy by immersing them in 10 learning modules and then sending them to labs and companies for a 3-month research internship while they complete their theses.
The Master is being offered for the third time beginning next month and, for students who want to continue their studies, it will count toward the first year of a PhD program in fusion energy.
OCEM participated in the first two Masters cycles and has intensified its support this year by signing on as an industry partner. This means it will fund a PhD scholarship, and in the future will offer a doctoral student the opportunity to conduct research at the company to produce a dissertation on a topic related to power electronics for fusion applications.
The industry partners are all supplying components to the ITER lab, a major international fusion research facility under construction in Cadarache, France.
“I am very glad that OCEM has joined the program, and I am looking forward to seeing how we can collaborate to bring new students into the work that OCEM is doing,” said Francesco Romanelli, Professor of Physics of Nuclear Energy at Tor Vergata and the former program manager for the European Fusion Development Agreement, the predecessor of the EUROfusion Consortium.
Giuseppe Taddia, OCEM’s Business Unit Manager, said the company was especially enthusiastic to participate because the program not only teaches the basics of fusion, but offers students a great opportunity to deepen their knowledge of industrial issues related to big science experiments.
The program is limited to 40 students to maximize interaction with lecturers and the industry partners.
“Our goal is the students’ professional futures,” Taddia said. “The Master and PhD in Fusion Energy is a great chance for those aspiring to work in a highly specialized industry, and we at OCEM are very proud to be a partner for this program.”
OCEM Power Electronics, since 1943 the specialist in Power Electronics.