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Department of Energy awards $928,000 to Lane Carasik, Ph.D., for fusion energy systems research

The project seeks to solve engineering challenges with plasma facing walls infusion energy systems.

Jan 20, 2026

2 min

Lane Carasik, Ph.D.

The Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced $128 million of funding for seven Fusion Innovation Research Engine (FIRE) Collaboratives. Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) College of Engineering researchers will support the project titled “Advancing the maturity of liquid metal (LM) plasma facing materials and first wall concept” led by the Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). This includes $928,000 to support research led by Lane Carasik, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, as part of a multi-institution effort for fusion energy systems. The FIRE Collaborative seeks to advance the maturity of liquid metal plasma-facing materials and wall concepts.


High operating temperatures within fusion energy systems pose a significant material design challenge. Research will help solve technical problems with liquid metal plasma-facing materials and first wall concepts, including four main challenges: testing protective materials, understanding material properties, studying how liquid metals behave in magnetic fields and developing new liquid metal alloys. The goal is to make liquid metals viable for fusion pilot plant designs.


“The work done by VCU as part of the FIRE Collaborative will help raise the technology readiness of Liquid Metal based fusion energy concepts. Over the next four years, we will train undergraduate and graduate students on how to extract electricity from these fusion concepts,” Carasik said.


Rajesh Maingi, Ph.D., is the lead primary investigator at PPPL. Institutional investigators for the group include Sergey Smolentsev, Ph.D., Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL); Vsevolod Soukhanovskii, Ph.D., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL); Daniel Andruczyk, Ph.D., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Bruce Koel, Ph.D., Princeton University; Michael Kotschrenreuther, Ph.D., ExoFusion; Xing Wang, Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University; Kevin Woller, Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Carasik from VCU.


Up to $220 million is expected to fund the FIRE Collaboratives over four years, with $31 million allocated for the 2025 fiscal year. Future distributions are dependent on congressional appropriations.

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Lane Carasik, Ph.D.

Lane Carasik, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering

Dr. Carasik researches computational and experimental thermal hydraulics for fusion & nuclear energy and medical isotope production.

Energy IndependenceAdditive ManufacturingComputational Fluid DynamicsVerification and ValidationThermal-Fluids Design
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2 min

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4 min

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