Víctor Iván Vargas Blanco (born March 24, 1973) is a Costa Rican plasma and nuclear fusion physicist. He is renowned for his work in plasma physics and nuclear fusion. Currently, as a professor and tenured researcher at the Costa Rica Institute of Technology, he heads the Plasma Laboratory for Fusion Energy and Applications that he founded in 2011. On August 11, 2016, Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica recognized the contributions and leadership of Vargas-Blanco in the design, construction, and implementation of the first high temperature plasma magnetic confinement Stellarator type device to be built in Latin America. This fact made Costa Rica one of only eight countries in the world to possess this type of technology for nuclear fusion research. He is a promoter of plasma physics applications for medical, agricultural, and industrial uses in his countries. On November 30, 2016, the government of Costa Rica honored Vargas-Blanco with the Clodomiro Picado Twight National Prize for Science and Technology. A few days later, on December 4, the Costa Rican newspaper La Nación chose Vargas-Blanco as one "News Character of The Year" in their Sunday Magazine edition. On June 4, 2018, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano appointed Vargas-Blanco a member of the International Fusion Research Council (IFRC), to actively work on the development of the international cooperation in research on controlled nuclear fusion and its applications, as well as advising the IAEA on the activities of the nuclear fusion research and technology program. In October 2018, the Costa Rica Foreign Trade Promotion (Procomer) chose him as one of the ambassadors of the "Essential Costa Rica" Country Brand.
Early years and education Vargas-Blanco is the second of five children born in the Canton Central de Alajuela to Susana Blanco Solis and Victor Manuel Vargas Rodriguez. The family were raised in "Concepcion de la Palmera" San Carlos de Alajuela, a rural north region of Costa Rica. His mother, Susana, is a housewife who worked daily in a family restaurant until 2018. His father, Victor, was a dairy farmer who later in life joined wife Susana managing the restaurant. Vargas-Blanco's schooling began at a small primary unified public school in Conception de la Palmera (1980–85), and he remembers, "There was a year when we were only ten students in the whole school". His interest in the sciences began early in life when many after school hours were dedicated to studying the only three science books available at the primary school.
One book titled, "Lo Que Queremos Saber de la Técnica" (What We Want To Know About Technique) fostered a deep desire to learn more about rockets and nuclear fusion. Even as a child, Vargas-Blanco would compose notes on ideas about particle physics and nuclear fusion.
From childhood to adolescence, Vargas-Blanco would spend his free time doing homemade experiments in his father's dairy. Vargas-Blanco completed his secondary studies at the Colegio Técnico Profesional Agropecuario de Aguas Zarcas in San Carlos, Alajuela. He had three kilometer daily walks followed by a one-hour truck ride to reach the school. There, he founded a scientific club and participated in The National Fairs of Science and Technology, earning several awards of merit including first place at a national level in 1989. His project received a perfect score. The University of Costa Rica accepted Ivan Vargas-Blanco to its undergraduate program majoring in physics in 1991. One year later, concerned about the practicality of pursuing a career in physics, he switched his major to Electrical Engineering. However, the young undergraduate's doubts were short lived. By year three he returned to a major in physics, even though the family could no longer support the studies because of economic limitations.
Undaunted, he studied mathematics then taught in high school academies to finance aspirations for a career in physics. The studies at the University of Costa Rica led to an undergraduate degree in 2000. By 2001, grad student Ivan Vargas-Blanco was hired as a professor at the Costa Rica Institute of Technology, then in 2002 was awarded a two-year doctoral scholarship from the Instituto de Acustica del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas and the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain. During his second year in Spain, Vargas-Blanco was accepted into the PhD program in Plasma and Nuclear Fusion at Complutense University of Madrid, entering into the Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), where the Laboratorio Nacional de Fusion is located. It was here that Vargas-Blanco developed his doctoral thesis project on local plasma transport in magnetic confinement devices. Once the two-year scholarship was over, Vargas-Blanco once again had to find gainful employment to finish his studies. Never to give up on his dreams for a career in physics, he got a scholarship from the Ministerio de Educación de España and his doctoral studies were completed on June 26, 2008.
Career
Research Vargas-Blanco received his doctorate in Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion from the Complutense University of Madrid in 2008. His PhD thesis entitled "Transporte local en plasmas ECRH de un dispositivo Heliac de confinamiento magnético" (Local transport in ECRH plasmas of a Heliac magnetic confinement device) is carried out at the Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT) where the National Fusion Laboratory is located. It presents the results of thermal transport characterization in plasmas of the Spanish Stellarator TJ-II and its dependence on density, rotational transformation and heating power. Additionally, it shows results of the study of particle transport in this device and its dependence on density. Vargas-Blanco's work represents one of the first scientific evidences of the influence and improvement of thermal confinement due to the rational surfaces in Stellarator devices. During his doctoral studies, Vargas-Blanco participated in other scientific activities such as the calibration and maintenance of the electronic cyclotron emission diagnosis for the measurement of plasma temperature and activities within the electronic cyclotron resonance heating group of the Stellarator TJ-II.
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