Mary Alice Cusentino, Ph.D.

Dr. Mary Alice Cusentino received her B.S./M.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013 and her PhD in Energy Science and Engineering from the University of Tennessee in 2018. She joined Sandia National Laboratories as a postdoc in 2018 where she later became a staff scientist in 2020. Her research focuses on radiation effects in materials with a particular focus on materials for fusion energy and is leading multiple projects in this area. She is primarily interested in atomistic modeling of plasma-material interactions and hydrogen/helium/neutron effects in fusion materials. She also develops machine learned interatomic potentials for materials in extreme conditions, primarily for fusion reactor materials.