Plasma Simulation Courses

January 20th, 2026 Update: I will be teaching PIC Fundamentals this summer over the 8 weeks between June 22 and August 10th. Registration page should now be functional, please let me if you encounter difficulties. The class will notionally be held Mondays but there may be a week or two when I need to move it to a different day to accommodate conference travel. Feel free to reach out with any questions! Dr. Brieda.

Upcoming Live Course:

Fundamentals of the PIC method introduces the Particle in Cell method used for kinetic plasma simulations using a step-by-step approach. We develop 1D, 3D, and 2D (axisymmetric) codes to simulate plasma sheath, E×B transport, plasma flow past a charged sphere, and a simple ion gun.

Past Courses

In addition, recordings from prior live courses are also available. The material from these courses will be organized into a new Advanced Plasma Simulation Methods class to be offered in the summer 2025.

Advanced PIC Techniques covers topics beyond the scope of the intro course. It covers three main concepts: electromagnetic PIC (EM-PIC), Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) collision modeling, and finite element PIC (FEM-PIC).

Distributed Computing for Plasma Applications demonstrates how to developed parallel codes that utilize multiple CPUs with multithreading and MPI distributed computing and graphics cards using CUDA to handle large simulation domains or to reduce run time.

Fluid Modeling
introduces Eulerian approaches for solving plasma flows. We cover single and multi-fluid MHD equation, hybrid approaches with detailed electron model, and advanced topics like Vlasov solvers.


Introduction to Plasma Simulation Methods is a crash course on Particle in Cell (PIC) and Eulerian MHD methods for simulating plasmas. Following my textbook, use use a step-by-step approach to develop 1D, 2D, and 3D structured and unstructured codes, and also learn about electromagnetics, collisions, and code parallelization.

Registration

Course Selection
Course NameFullUniE/B
PIC Fundamentals 320 260 ✓
Distributed Computing 320 250
Advanced PIC 320 250
Fluid Modeling 320 250
Plasma Sim Methods 320 250
Total: 0 USD

Excludes returning-student discount

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Testimonials

Thank you for your invaluable help!. I enjoyed a lot taking Fundamentals of PIC course and I have learnt tons of new concepts during these weeks!. I can’t wait to joint the following course on advanced PIC! – Raffaello B., Aug 2024

Very good class that allows a person to start understanding PIC concepts with a basic background in physics. I look forward to the next class. – Cheong C., Aug 2024

I am halfway through the course and I really have to thank you because you have made complex subject accessible, especially for those who do not have a computational background. – DM

This is a great course! – KD

Thank you for all courses, which were, and will be, very helpful for my work. – WK

Some of my students have taken your PIC course couple years ago and in general find the experience useful and rewarding. Having access to these type of courses is especially important for me, as myself I am not a computational person and have to rely on collaborators for help with computations for my students. – Prof. A. S.