Applied
physicist.
Robotics
engineer.

I work between two worlds: computational plasma fusion at Columbia, and the modular robotics ecosystem I'm building from scratch. Both reduce to the same question: how do you write physics that survives contact with reality?

B.S.E. Applied Physics, Columbia '27

Explore ORION Read the Research Resume Get in Touch

Currently

Building ORION + simulating stellarator instabilities on NERSC Perlmutter.

3.90

GPA

4

SUBSYSTEMS

2

CONFERENCES

Columbia SEAS · Fu Foundation simsopt · VMEC2000 · MuJoCo · ROS 2 · NERSC scroll for more ↓

§ 01

About

I'm an Applied Physics undergraduate at Columbia SEAS, conducting computational plasma fusion research under Dr. Elizabeth Paul at the Columbia Fusion Energy Research Center. My work centers on stellarator optimization using simsopt, VMEC2000, and booz_xform on the NERSC Perlmutter HPC cluster.

Outside of plasma research, I co-architect ORION, a modular robotics ecosystem with four subsystems spanning perception, motor control, navigation, and self-calibrating physics discovery. The throughline is computational physics applied to systems that have to actually work, not just simulate cleanly.

The interesting problems live in the gap between clean theory and code that survives contact with hardware. That gap is where I want to spend my career.

§ 02

Research

Two threads. Stellarator plasma physics for fusion energy at Columbia, ongoing. Stellar photometry calibration with TESS data at CUNY Queens, presented at TASC7 in Hawaii and TASC NYC, concluded.

Active · Columbia

2025 · present

Reduced Simulation Models for Wave-Particle Interactions

A δf Particle-in-Cell framework for the Vlasov-Poisson bump-on-tail instability. Modeling resonant transport in stellarator geometries.

Coordinate transform

u_c = u·cos(φ), u_s = u·sin(φ)

Vlasov-Poisson Symplectic PIC

Dr. Elizabeth Paul · Fusion Energy Research Center Read More

Concluded · Queens

2023 · 2024

Calibrating TESS Photometry with White Dwarfs

Statistical analysis of 33,396 sector observations to quantify CROWDSAP errors. White dwarfs as flux standards.

TESS Pipeline MCMC Photometry

Dr. Keaton Bell · TASC7 Hawaii · TASC NYC Read More

§ 03

ORION

A modular robotics ecosystem co-built with David Young. Four subsystems share state through ROS 2, each owning one layer of the perception-decision-action loop.

BROTEUS sees. ORION decides. CHIRON moves. DAEDALUS calibrates.

FIG · 03.1 · System topology v1.0 · phase 1 complete

Architecture Principle

ORION is the central reasoning hub. It receives perception from BROTEUS, requests navigation plans from ATHENA, dispatches motion commands to CHIRON, and pulls calibration updates from DAEDALUS as it learns physics from real motion data.

Subsystems are independent FastAPI services on dedicated ports, communicating over ROS 2 Humble. No subsystem holds the others' state.

Subsystem Port Status

ORION :8000 phase 1 ✓

BROTEUS :8100 live

CHIRON :8200 in dev

DAEDALUS :8300 in dev

ATHENA :8400 deployed

Target Hardware

SO-ARM 101 · 6-DOF arm with camera eye

A first physical platform to orchestrate all four subsystems.

phase 2 · summer 2026

§ 04

Projects

Three of ORION's four subsystems have working implementations. Each has a dedicated technical write-up.

PER_01

BROTEUS

PERCEPTION LAYER

Real-time vision pipeline. YOLO-World detection, MediaPipe dual-hand tracking, MiDaS depth, gesture & animation recognition. 21 FPS on CPU.

YOLO-World · MediaPipe · DTW

Deep dive

CHI_01

CHIRON

MOTOR CORTEX

Self-measuring gripper. Geometry-based grasp planning. 9-phase pick-and-place sequencer with grasp verification & auto-retry. 500 Hz physics.

MuJoCo · DLS-IK · FastAPI

Deep dive

NAV_01

ATHENA

NAVIGATION LAYER

4 algorithms (A*, Dijkstra, RRT, D* Lite). Infinite procedural terrain. 4 planetary environments: Mars, Venus, Europa, Titan. Browser-native.

Three.js · React · D* Lite

Deep dive live

↗

Try ATHENA live in your browser

shtet100.github.io/ATHENA

launch demo →

§ 05

Curriculum Vitae

EDUCATION

Columbia University

2024 · 2027

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science

B.S.E. Applied Physics | GPA 3.90

Mechatronics · Robot Learning · Kinematics of Machines & Robots · Applied Physics Laboratory · Plasma Physics

CUNY Queens College

2022 · 2024

Pre-Engineering Track

B.S. Physics | GPA 3.87

Stellar photometry research · TASC7 Hawaii presenter · TASC NYC presenter

SELECTED HONORS

★

Departmental Physics Prize

Awarded for sustained excellence in physics studies.

★

Outstanding Research Award · Physics

Recognition for the TESS White Dwarf calibration project.

★

Michael Craig-Scheckman Award

Impactful collaboration in undergraduate research.

Conference Talks

TASC7 / KASC14 Workshop Hawaii · 2024

TASC NYC Workshop CUNY · 2023

§ 06

Stack

Tools I reach for, organized by where they live in the workflow.

Languages

Python

C++

Java

JavaScript

MATLAB · Mathematica

PIC Assembly

Physics & HPC

simsopt

VMEC2000

booz_xform

NERSC Perlmutter

SLURM · Conda · MPI

Robotics & ML

ROS 2 Humble

MuJoCo · Genesis

PyTorch

SINDy

RL · Monte Carlo

Frameworks & Tools

FastAPI

React · Three.js

Docker · Linux

Git · LaTeX

VS Code · Vim

Domain Expertise

Plasma Dynamics & Fusion Wave-Particle Interactions Stellarator Optimization Robot Kinematics Autonomous Navigation Reduced-Order Modeling Symplectic Integration Mechatronics Astrophysical Pipelines

§ 07

Open to research collaborations and engineering work that takes physics seriously.

Reach out about: undergraduate or summer research, robotics partnerships, fusion-related opportunities, or just to talk through an interesting problem.