Prize Recipient

Stephen Vance Weber
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Citation:

"For outstanding theoretical work, computational design and analysis, and experimental work leading to quantitative and predictive understanding of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability in high energy density plasmas."

Background:

Stephen Weber received his A.B. in physics, summa cum laude, from Princeton University in 1973. He obtained his Ph.D. in astronomy in 1978 from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1978 to 1980 he was a research fellow in the theoretical astrophysics group at the California Institute of Technology. He was an assistant professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College from 1980 to 1982. Since 1982, he has worked on inertial fusion target design at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. During that time, his research activities have included large scale numerical simulations, design of experiments for Halite underground nuclear tests, study of instabilities in compressible hydrodynamics, design of capsules and other experiments for inertial fusion, and interpretation of experimental results. His current research is focused on investigation of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability in direct and indirect drive inertial fusion and design of direct drive ignition capsules for the National Ignition Facility.