Cami Collins received her PhD in 2013 from the University of Wisconsin Madison, where she built
a plasma physics experiment to study astrophysical accretion disks. Cami received a number of scholarships as an
undergraduate at Montana State University Bozeman, including the National Undergraduate Fellowship in Plasma Physics
(now known as SULI) which allowed her to spend a summer in San Diego doing nuclear fusion research. As a graduate
student in Wisconsin, she received several fellowships and was selected to attend the Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates
in Germany. She received the APS Marshall Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award for her graduate work.
Cami is now a scientist researching fusion energy at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego, the largest
tokamak in the U.S. She studies the physics of how to better confine fast ions, which is important for improving
fusion performance and preventing fast ion losses that can damage the reactor walls.
Cami loves dogs, saltwater reef aquariums, whistler wave detecting, and recently got a really nice
telescope for Christmas.