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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: June 26, 1997
Contacts:
Justin Harmon, Princeton University 609/258-5732
Anthony DeMeo, Princeton Plasma Physics Lab 609/243-2755
Professor Robert J. Goldston to Lead
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
PRINCETON, N.J. -- Robert J. Goldston, professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University, associate director for research at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), and for many years a leading figure in the field of magnetic fusion, will become PPPL's fifth director, effective July 1.
Goldston's appointment comes at a time of transition for both PPPL and the national fusion program. PPPL is entering a new phase of research following the highly successful 15-year experimental program on its Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR), which made many scientific contributions and achieved more than 10 megawatts of fusion power prior to its decommissioning earlier this year. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Energy's Fusion Energy Sciences program, which funds PPPL, has been restructured this past year to focus on better understanding of the fundamental science of plasmas, innovative confinement concepts that will allow less expensive development of an attractive fusion power source, and international collaboration for studying "burning" plasmas and for the development of large-scale fusion technologies.
"Rob Goldston is exactly the right person to lead PPPL and, in that capacity, to play a central role in the national and international magnetic fusion efforts at a time of new directions and innovation in this exciting field of research," said Princeton University President Harold T. Shapiro. "In addition to being a scientist of the highest stature, he is known within the field as a person of vision, a gifted communicator, and a leader committed to forging effective partnerships among individual scientists and diverse institutions in support of a truly national, even international, research enterprise."
Princeton University Provost Jeremiah Ostriker, who led the search for the new PPPL director along with physics professor and chair of the University Research Board William Happer, said, "Rob Goldston's scientific accomplishments demonstrate that he is extremely well qualified for this position of leadership at PPPL and within the larger magnetic fusion community. He also happens to be one of those rare individuals who can describe a research vision in terms that elicit the respect and cooperation of scientists and nonscientists alike. I have no doubt that, under his leadership, PPPL will continue to play a central role in a collaborative national and international effort to deepen the understanding of hot plasmas and to make fusion energy a practical reality. We are fortunate to have him assume the directorship of the lab at this critical juncture in its history." (Ostriker, like Goldston, is a professor of astrophysical sciences.)
Secretary of Energy Federico F. Peña commented: "PPPL is one of the Department of Energy's premier research institutions. It's our only laboratory dedicated to plasma physics, a scientific discipline important not only to long-range fusion energy research, but also to nearer-term issues in semiconductor processing, astrophysics and waste management. I'm pleased that Professor Goldston brings such scientific accomplishment to this position of leadership within the U.S. fusion program. I look forward to working with him in sustaining a strong U.S. fusion science program into the 21st century."
Goldston came to Princeton University in 1972 as a graduate student in the Program in Plasma Physics and received his Ph.D. in astrophysical sciences in 1977. Since that time he has had a distinguished career pursuing experimental and theoretical research on the high-temperature plasmas required for producing thermonuclear fusion. (Plasmas are gasses so hot that atomic nuclei and electrons, normally bound together within atoms, travel free from each other. Fusion, the joining of atomic nuclei, is the power source of the sun and the stars.) Goldston has authored and co-authored over 200 scholarly articles, and is co-author with Paul Rutherford of the textbook, Introduction to Plasma Physics .
In describing the discipline of high-temperature plasma physics, Goldston said, "The study of the physics of hot plasmas is one of the most rewarding fields of scientific research. Plasmas are full of wonderful and surprising tricks that fascinate us as scientists, and at the same time the goal of providing a sustainable and clean energy source for future generations provides a fundamental motivation for our hard work."
Goldston's career at PPPL began with research on the Adiabatic Toroidal Compressor experiment, in which he studied the interaction of energetic ions with quiescent plasmas. He confirmed that this interaction can be accurately described using the theories developed by Lyman Spitzer Jr. and other founders of the field of plasma physics. Goldston was then a leader in the breakthrough experiments on the Princeton Large Torus in 1978, in which plasmas heated by energetic ions reached the temperature regime required for fusion.
In the next phase of his career, Goldston participated in experiments on the Poloidal Divertor Experiment. There he made measurements and calculations showing that intense populations of energetic ions can cause waves to grow in the plasma, traveling with the motion of the ions and strongly affecting their trajectories. He also worked with others to develop the key concepts for a powerful new diagnostic technique to measure plasma temperature and flow. At the same time, he published seminal work on the application of chaos theory to particle orbits in nearly symmetric toroidal systems, and he led the development of a major integrated computer code for tokamak data interpretation, which has now become a world standard. During this period he gathered data from tokamak experiments around the world and developed a widely applied scaling relation for plasma energy confinement, which accurately predicted many of the results achieved on the next generation of much larger experiments.
When the TFTR was brought into operation, Goldston soon headed its Physics Program Division. Many important new physics discoveries were made by the TFTR scientific team, including the confirmation of theoretical predictions that toroidal plasmas can sustain their own confining currents -- a result of crucial importance for the possibility of long-pulse or steady-state operation of fusion systems. The TFTR team also discovered a new, very high temperature enhanced confinement regime, for which Goldston shared the APS Prize for Excellence in Plasma Physics with Richard Hawryluk and James Strachan.
In the most recent phase of his research, Goldston has focused his efforts on working with collaborative national teams to design new experimental facilities for the U.S. fusion program, based on theoretical analyses and experimental results from TFTR and other devices around the world. This work has culminated in the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX), which is now under construction at PPPL, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy as a joint project of PPPL, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Washington, and Columbia University. The mission of the NSTX is to develop the physics basis for a more compact fusion power source, with a lower-cost development path to commercial application. The NSTX, whose groundbreaking will occur later this year, is the first element in the renewed nationally based program at PPPL.
Goldston succeeds Ronald C. Davidson, who served as director of PPPL since 1991, and who returned to full-time research and teaching at Princeton on January 1. John A. Schmidt, head of PPPL's Advanced Projects Department, served as interim director.
NOTE: A JPEG image of Robert Goldston may be downloaded via the Internet at http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pictures/.