Swimming through Fusion Research: Student Spotlight with Ryan Zerpa

In this Student Spotlight, we trace how childhood curiosity—sparked by Nikola Tesla and MythBusters—led Ryan Zerpa from building a Tesla coil in grade school to pursuing fusion research.

Ryan shares how he reframed a mostly-fission undergrad at Purdue Nuclear Engineering into a launchpad for fusion, what he learned working around pulsed-power experiments like Sandia’s Z Machine, and how Division I swimming forged the time-management and grit research demands.

We unpack his plain-language way of explaining fusion (from “why energy transition” to “how plasmas are tamed with lasers and magnets”), then close with his next step: a PhD in high-energy-density physics at the University of Rochester (LLE)—and his advice for students to ask relentlessly and feed their curiosity.

What you’ll learn

• Why Tesla, fields, and hands-on tinkering pulled Ryan toward electromagnetism and fusion

• How to turn a fission-heavy curriculum into fusion-useful skills (transport theory, fluids → plasmas)

• What pulsed-power/HEDP experiments aim to do and why nanosecond timing matters

• The student-athlete toolkit for research: discipline, recovery, and focused practice

• A simple, audience-friendly way to explain fusion—and why storytelling in science matters

• Practical advice for aspiring students: persistence beats perfection

  
  

  • Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) — overview of the national lab and mission:
    https://www.sandia.gov/ Sandia National Laboratories

  • Z Pulsed Power Facility (“Z Machine”) — Sandia’s pulsed-power/HEDP platform:
    https://www.sandia.gov/z-machine/  | About Z: https://www.sandia.gov/z-machine/about-z/ Sandia National Laboratories+1

  • Purdue University — Nuclear Engineering — program home:
    https://engineering.purdue.edu/NE Purdue Engineering

  • Ryan’s PhD site — University of Rochester, Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE)
    https://www.lle.rochester.edu/homepage/