Prize Recipient

Debra Ann Callahan
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Citation:

"For predicting and demonstrating the technique of laser scatter on self-generated plasma-optics gratings that enables generation and redirection of high-energy laser beams important for indirect drive inertial confinement fusion and high-power laser-matter interactions."

Background:

Debbie Callahan received her BS degree in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Denver in 1985. After spending two years at Cornell University, she moved to the University of California, Davis to complete her PhD under the direction of Bruce Langdon and John DeGroot. Her thesis research was carried out at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). She completed her PhD in 2003 and has continued to work on inertial confinement fusion and inertial fusion energy at LLNL.
Debbie is currently a group leader for ICF/IFE target design within AX Division in the Weapons and Complex Integration Directorate, and the target design leader for the Integrated Tuning Campaign within the National Ignition Campaign (NIC) on NIF. She has been involved with the National Ignition Campaign experiments since they started in 2009. Prior to NIF experiments, she led the “Hohlraum Point Design Working Group” within NIC to develop the point design hohlraum for ignition. Debbie recently completed a three-year term on the Executive Committee of the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics.