APS News

November 1998 (Volume 7, Number 10)

Physicists To Be Honored at November Meetings

Five physicists will be honored for their work in fluid dynamics and plasma physics in November. The 1998 James Clerk Maxwell Prize, Excellence in Plasma Physics Award, and the Outstanding Doctoral Thesis in Plasma Physics Award will be presented during the annual fall meeting of the Division of Plasma Physics in New Orleans. The 1998 Fluid Dynamics Prize and Otto Laporte Award will be presented during the annual fall meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics in Philadelphia.

James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics

Established in 1975 and supported by Maxwell Technologies, Inc., the James Clerk Maxwell Prize recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of plasma physics.

Boris Kadomtsev
Kurchatov Institute
Moscow, Russia

Citation: "For fundamental contributions to plasma turbulence theory, stability and nonlinear theory of MHD and kinetic instabilities in plasmas, and for international leadership in research and teaching of plasma physics and controlled thermonuclear fusion physics." 

A pioneering researcher of the world fusion program, Kadomtsev graduated in physics from Moscow University in 1951. He worked at the Institute of Physics and Energetics in Obninsk until 1956, when he joined the Kurchatov Institute. In 1970 he was named Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and awarded the State Prize of the USSR. The following year he assumed a Chair of Plasma Physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. He eventually was named director of the Institute of Nuclear Fusion at the Kurchatov Institute. Kadomstev passed away in August, shortly after the announcement that he had been selected as the 1998 recipient of the Maxwell Prize.

Excellence in Plasma Physics Research Award

Established in 1981 by donations from friends of the Division of Plasma Physics. This award recognizes a particular recent outstanding achievement in plasma physics research.

Robert C. Cauble
Peter M. Celliers
Gilbert W. Collins
Luiz B. Da Silva
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Citation: "For an exquisite series of experiments using high intensity lasers to measure the high pressure properties of hydrogen across the molecular insulator to monatomic metal transition." 

Cauble received his PhD in nuclear engineering in 1980 from the University of Michigan and then joined Berkeley Research Associates working at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. Since 1985 he has been at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Celliers received his PhD in physics from the University of British Columbia, Canada in 1987. After one year at the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, he returned to UBC as a research associate. From 1992-1994 he worked in industrial developing spectrometers, and then joined Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Collins received his PhD in physics in 1989 from the Ohio State University, after which he became a staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He is currently leader of the Cryogenics Group in the inertial confinement fusion program.

Da Silva received his PhD in physics in 1988 from the University of British Columbia. In 1988 he joined the University of California, Berkeley and then in 1992 he became a staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on the development and application of x-ray lasers to probe high density plasmas.

Outstanding Doctoral Thesis in Plasma Physics Award

Established in 1985 and endowed by General Atomics in 1997, recognizes young scientists whose doctoral thesis work is of outstanding quality and achievement in the area of plasma physics.

Darin Ernst
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Citation: "For elucidating the role of radial electric field shear in reducing local heat transport in supershot tokamak plasmas." 

Ernst received his PhD in physics from MIT in 1997, spending summers at the Joint European Torus and Institute for Fusion Studies. In 1992, he moved to the Princeton University Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) to play an active role in three years of historic Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor deuterium-tritium experiments, returning to MIT in late 1995. As an undergraduate, he gained experience at the Trane Company, Wisconsin Synchrotron Radiation Center, Wisconsin Tandem Van deGraaf Laboratory, and IBM. Now an associate research physicist at PPPL, Ernst continues work on the effects of radial electric field shear on transitionless enhanced confinement, pursuing collaborations on several tokamak experiments.

Fluid Dynamics Prize

Established in 1979 and supported by the AIP journal Physics of Fluids, the Fluid Dynamics Prize recognizes and encourages outstanding achievements in fluid dynamics research.

Fazle Hussain
University of Houston

Citation: "For his careful and skillful experiments and interpretative concepts concerning important structures in turbulence and vortex dynamics, for his new turbulence measurement techniques, and for provoking his students and colleagues to think in fresh ways about turbulence." 

Hussain obtained his BS in mechanical engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology in 1963 and worked there as a lecturer. He moved to Stanford University as a Fulbright Scholar and obtained his PhD there in 1969. He was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University before moving to the University of Houston in 1971, where he is now the Cullen Distinguished Professor. Hussain's research has been in the areas of transition and turbulence phenomena and their control in jets and shear layers. He has also served on the editorial board of Physics of Fluids and the Journal of Fluids Engineering.

Otto LaPorte Award

The LaPorte Award was established in 1985 to recognize important advances in fluid dynamics.

David G. Crighton
University of Cambridge

Citation: "For creative research of aerodynamically generated sound, nonlinear acoustics, flow-structure interaction and hydrodynamic instability, and for indelible contributions as a teacher and for service to the international fluid dynamics community." 

Crighton received his BA in Mathematics from St. John's College, University of Cambridge in 1964 and his PhD in Applied Mathematics from Imperial College in London in 1969. Following stints at Woolwich Polytechnic (now University of Greenwich) and Imperial College, London he became a professor of applied mathematics at the University of Leeds. In 1986 he joined the faculty at the University of Cambridge where he currently heads the department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Crighton has conducted research in aeroacoustics, hydroacoustics, nonlinear acoustics, and structural acoustics.


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Editor: Barrett H. Ripin

November 1998 (Volume 7, Number 10)

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Articles in this Issue
Centennial: APS Establishes Travel Grants for Student Centennial Attendance
Centennial: Topical Symposia Arranged for Centennial Meeting
Centennial: APS Ephemera Wanted/APS Centurions
Centennial: Historical Factal
Centennial: A Century of Physics
Centennial: Prominent Physicists CD-ROM
Leo Szilard Lectureship Award is Funded
Physicists To Be Honored at November Meetings
In Brief
Physical Review Focus
Senior Membership
APS Regional Sections Hold Fall Meetings
Inside the Beltway: A Washington Analysis
Letters
The Back Page
Zero Gravity: The Lighter Side of Science