Prize Recipient

James Philip Knauer
Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester

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:

James Knauer received his B.S. degree in physics from M.I.T. and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Hawaii. His professional career includes post-doctoral positions with the High Energy Physics group at the University of Pennsylvania and the Low Energy X-ray laboratory at the University of Hawaii. He also held a research scientist position with the Applied Physics Laboratory at the Lockheed Missles and Space Company's Palo Alto Research Laboratory. In 1986 he became the scientist/manager of the National Laser Users Facility at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics. He has been and is currently involved with doing experiments on the OMEGA laser system and Table-Top Terrawatt laser at the University of Rochester and the Nova laser system at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His professional interests include: investigation of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability occurring in direct-drive inertial confinement fusion implosions; the interaction of electrons with intense electro-magnetic fields; and the development of nuclear and absolute fluence x-ray diagnostics for ICF implosion and laser-matter interaction experiments.