Prize Recipient


Recipient Picture

Howard Wilson
University of York

Citation:

"For experiments and theory that explained the limiting edge instabilities of high performance tokamak plasmas, including the key role of peeling-ballooning modes, thus enabling quantitative predictions of the edge pressure in fusion plasmas."

Background:

Howard Wilson graduated with a degree in Physics from the University of Durham, UK in 1985, and a PhD in theoretical particle physics from the University of Cambridge in 1988. He then joined UKAEA’s Culham Laboratory as a theoretical plasma physicist in the UK fusion programme, developing research interests spanning neoclassical tearing modes, peeling-ballooning modes and the linear mode structure of toroidal micro-instabilities believed to be responsible for turbulence in tokamaks. He also led the physics basis for the design of a fusion power plant and components test facility based on the spherical tokamak. In 2005 he moved to the University of York to take a Chair in Plasma Physics. He established the York Plasma Institute in 2012 and serves as its Director. He also leads the EPSRC-funded Fusion Doctoral Training Network, which is a collaborative PhD programme across magnetic and inertial fusion energy, involving the Universities of York, Durham, Liverpool, Manchester and Oxford together with Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and AWE. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and holds a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.