Dr. Eric C. Howell is a fusion research scientist with expertise in applying computational plasma physics to magnetically confined plasma. Throughout his career, he has used the NIMROD MHD code to investigate a wide range of phenomena. This includes studying interchange dynamics in spheromaks and magnetic mirrors, disruptions in current-driven stellarators, the onset of neoclassical tearing modes in the tokamaks, and the application of external resonant magnetic fields to suppress edge localized modes in tokamaks.

Dr Howell is also experienced in developing 2D (EFIT) and 3D (V3FIT) equilibrium reconstruction tools. He is interested in using Bayesian based integrated data analysis to compute high-quality fits with quantifiable uncertainty. During his post-doctoral work at Auburn University, he developed a non-parametric Gaussian Process module in V3FIT. At Tech-X he was part of the EFIT-AI team, a collaboration involving Tech-X, General Atomics, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, and Argonne National Laboratory.

Dr. Howell earned his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He then worked as a post-doctoral research scientist at Auburn University before joining the fusion science group at Tech-X corporation. Dr. Howell is currently a partner and senior research scientist at Fiat Lux. He maintains active collaborations with the University of California San Diego and Auburn University.