Edward Teller Medal winners named
Twelve scientists were nominated for this year's medals. A selection committee, comprised of past Edward Teller Medal winners, narrowed the distinguished field of candidates to two individuals, who were then approved by the ANS. Those awardees are:
Joseph D. Kilkenny
Dr. Kilkenny is Vice President for Inertial Fusion Technology at General Atomics in San Diego, Calif. and Associate Director for Science and Technology at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics of the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. Kilkenny has made major contributions to experimental inertial fusion for more than 35 years. As an academic at Imperial College, London, he researched nonlinear thermal transport in plasmas, Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities, and ablation pressure scaling while supervising 15 graduate students, many of whom occupy senior positions today. He also formed Kentech Instruments Ltd., a manufacturer of x-ray streak cameras.
Kilkenny's innovation in instrumentation and experimentation continued at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory when he became leader of the ICF program in 1995. Highlights of his research include plasma spectroscopy, fast-electron generation and transport, hydrodynamic instabilities, high-pressure equation-of-state measurements and high speed instrumentation. His leadership and contributions led to satisfying the National Academy of Sciences' "Nova Technical Contract". Experiments he initiated were the basis for favorable recommendations of the NAS on constructing the National Ignition Facility at LLNL. His high-energy-density work has been of great value to both inertial fusion and the US Stockpile Stewardship Program. He later became the Associate Director for Science at LLE, University of Rochester and recently was chosen to lead the target fabrication effort at General Atomics. In 1993, his experimental innovativeness led to his receiving the SPIE Conrady Prize and, along with his team, an R&D100 Award. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and he and his colleagues received the 1995 APS-Division of Plasma Physics Excellence in Plasma Physics Research Award.
Dr. Max Tabak
Dr. Max Tabak is a senior scientist and group leader at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, Calif. Tabak is internationally recognized for his seminal role in the development of fast ignition, and for more than two decades of innovative and influential theoretical research in inertial fusion and high-energy-density physics. His work includes development of the distributed radiator target for ion beams, hot spot ignition studies with a wide range of drivers including lasers, ion beams, and pulsed power for both direct and indirect drive, and studies of hohlraum energetics, implosion symmetry, hydrodynamic instabilities. His work spans the range of physics issues critical to the achievement of high gain targets for inertial fusion and to issues in the US Stockpile Stewardship Program.
Tabak was the first to recognize that separating ignition from compression could enable an entirely new class of ICF targets - the so-called fast ignition process. This new class of targets would relax the requirements on the compression driver, as well as provide the potential for substantially increased gain and reduced driver energy, making inertial fusion power plants more competitive at a smaller size. He is an effective mentor and group leader, whose team has made major contributions to a broad range of topics in ICF and high-energy-density physics and has stimulated advanced research all over the world. Tabak is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
The Edward Teller Medal recognizes pioneering research and leadership in inertial fusion sciences and applications. The award is named in honor of Dr. Edward Teller, who was a distinguished physicist, Director Emeritus of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Teller, who died in 2003, is recognized worldwide as a pioneer in inertial fusion sciences. This year's two winners will each receive a sterling silver medal bearing the likeness of Dr. Teller and a $2000.00 honorarium.
Under the auspices of the ANS Fusion Energy Division, two Teller Awards are presented biannually at the IFSA conferences. The IFSA conference brings together more than three hundred scientists and engineers from all parts of the world to compare results of the latest research in inertial fusion. (http://ifsa05.celia.u-bordeaux1.fr/).
