Alain Brizard, associate professor of physics at Saint Michael's College, has received a $50,000 research grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, under the program Theoretical Research in Magnetic Fusion Energy Science, to support his research activities during his sabbatical leave from October 2008 to June 2009.
The title of his project, "Nonlinear finite-Larmor-radius effects in reduced fluid models," involves collaborations with physicists at Dartmouth College during the fall of 2008, as well with as the French laboratory CEA/Cadarache near Aix-en-Provence, where Brizard will spend part of his sabbatical leave from January to June 2009. Brizard's work focuses on the derivation of nonlinear fluid equations suitable for the analysis of complex plasma dynamics by powerful computer simulations which he will carry out on computers at Dartmouth College.
A member of the faculty of Saint Michael's since 2000, Professor Brizard was a physicist in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and was with the physics department at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1994 until coming to Saint Michael's. He earned his doctorate in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University in 1990.
Dr. Brizard and his wife Dinah and their teen-aged son reside in Essex Junction.
Saint Michael's College, founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, is identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nation's Best 368 Colleges. A liberal arts, residential, Catholic college, Saint Michael's is located just outside of Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns and less than two hours from Montreal. As one of only 270 institutions nationwide with a prestigious Phi Beta Kappa chapter on campus, Saint Michael's has 2,000 full-time undergraduate students, some 500 graduate students and 200 international students. In recent years Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Guggenheim, Fulbright, National Science Foundation and other grants, and Saint Michael's professors have been named Vermont Professor of the Year in four of the last eight years. The college is currently listed as one of the nation's Best Liberal Arts Colleges in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings.