After concluding his high school education at the school “Cristina Torres” in Figueira da Foz in 2010, Rogerio pursued his studies at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Lisbon. There, he concluded the Integrated Masters (bachelor’s plus master’s) in Engineering Physics in four years (2010-2014) by taking courses in quantum field theory, general relativity, cosmology, particle physics, and plasma physics. For his final six months of master thesis research and writing, he won an Erasmus scholarship to go to EPFL university in Lausanne, Switzerland, with Prof. Nuno Loureiro and Prof. Paolo Ricci as co-advisors. He successfully defended his thesis on October 21, 2014, with a final grade of 19/20. During his thesis, Rogerio modified and applied the plasma turbulence code GBS to model the poloidal-limited scrape-off layer of the ISTTOK tokamak in IST, Lisbon.
In January 2015 he started his Ph.D. at IST, Portugal under the EPFL-IST Joint Doctoral Initiative, advised by Prof. Nuno Loureiro and Prof. Paolo Ricci. In 2016 he moved to Lausanne to pursue his Ph.D. at EPFL, where he stayed until January 2019. He successfully defended his thesis on February 22, 2019, at EPFL where he received the unanimous jury classification of Pass with Distinction and Honour. For his thesis, he received the 2020 EPS-PPD Ph.D. Research Award and the EPFL Physics Doctoral Thesis Award. During his Ph.D., Rogerio developed a set of equations that can describe plasmas at arbitrary collisionalities while retaining numerical efficiency and applied this model to a variety of cases, including drift-wave instability and Landau damping.
In March 2019 Rogerio started working at the University of Maryland at College Park, United States as a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the associate research scientist Matt Landreman. There, as part of the “Simons Collaboration on Hidden Symmetries and Fusion Energy”, he worked on the development of mathematical tools to analytically describe magnetic field stellarator equilibria. From June 2021 to December 2021, he worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Max-Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Greifswald, Germany with Prof. Per Helander, where he was the recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation research grant. He is currently working as a research scientist at IST, where he won an early career award from the Portuguese national science foundation (FCT, CEEC, 2021 Edition) and is the Principal Investigator for a EUROfusion Enabling Research Grant on the design of magnetic confinement fusion reactors. He is also an Invited Assistant Professor at the Physics Department of IST where he teaches and supervises physics students.
Musical Bio
Rogerio was enrolled in the Conservatory of Music David de Sousa from 2002-2010 where he took classes in classical guitar, music theory, composition, acoustics, music history, choir, piano, and instrumental ensemble. He finished the Complimentary Degree in Classical Guitar with an average grade of 18/20 and 20/20 in his final guitar recital. His guitar professors during that time were Prof. Miguel Lélis (2002-2009) and Prof. Tiago Cassola (2009-2010). As a musician, Rogerio has participated in the following musical contests
1st place – “Muziekfestival” in Neerpelt, Belgium as part of the group “Permallets” (bass, 2011)
1st place – “IV Olimpíadas de Música David de Sousa” in Figueira da Foz, Portugal, Category D (classical guitar, 2009)
1st place – “11o Edição do Concurso Santa Cecília” in Porto, Portugal, Category B (classical guitar, 2009)
1st place – “Concurso Internacional Cidade do Fundão” in Fundão, Portugal, Level V (classical guitar, 2009)
1st place – “I Concurso Luso-Espanhol” in Fafe, Portugal, Level IV (classical guitar, 2007)
1st place – “2º Concurso de Guitarra do Conservatório de Música do Porto” in Porto, Portugal, Level II (classical guitar, 2006)
1st place – “Concurso Juvenil de Guitarra Clássica de Ourém” Level E (classical guitar, 2006)
1st place – “I Olimpíadas de Música David de Sousa” in Figueira da Foz, Portugal, Category C (classical guitar, 2006)
With the “Permallets” group, he was an invited soloist at the 1st Percussion Festival “Permallets and Friends on Tour 2008” of Figueira da Foz in 2008. He also recorded a CD with the group in Santa Maria da Feira in 2009 and was a guitar professor at the 4th Permallets Festival in 2011. As a guitarist, he was enrolled in several masterclasses with classical guitar professionals, such as Roberto Aussel, Dejan Ivanovic, Paulo Vaz de Carvalho, and Pedro Rodrigues. Rogerio has played in many national halls, such as the “Paços da Cultura” Auditorium in São João da Madeira as part of the IV Ciclo Musicatos in 2010, in Casino Figueira during the weekly summer concerts from 2010-2013, and in the “Centro de Artes e Espectáculos” in Figueira da Foz.
In 2018, Rogerio founded a music school at the Associação Cultural Portuguesa norte-sul (ACPns) association in Lausanne, Switzerland. As the goal of the association was to keep alive the Portuguese traditions among the Portuguese emigrant community in Lausanne, the music school taught primarily traditional Portuguese songs and instruments, such as the “concertina” (diatonic accordion), cavaquinho (steel-stringed ukulele), adufe and guitar. Rogerio was also a tenor saxophonist at the Swiss band “Union Instrumentale de Prilly” from 2018 to 2019 and at the Portuguese band “Sociedade de Instrução e Recreio de Lares” (SIRL) from 2007 to 2011 where he also took part in the teaching activities of the music school.