Prize Recipient

Michael Van Zeeland
General Atomics

"For greater understanding of energetic particle transport in tokamaks through collaborative research."

Dr. Michael Van Zeeland received his B.S. in engineering physics from the University of Arizona in 1997. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of California - Los Angeles in 2003 working with Professor Walter Gekelman on the Large Plasma Device (LAPD). His thesis focused on the radiation of Alfvén waves from a dense, rapidly expanding, laser produced plasma embedded in an ambient background plasma. In 2003 he joined the DIII-D tokamak group at General Atomics first as a postdoctoral researcher, then as a staff scientist in 2006. At DIII-D, Dr. Van Zeeland's work focuses on fast ion physics, Alfvén eigenmodes, and fusion plasma diagnostic development. Dr. Van Zeeland received the 2008 IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Plasma Physics, UCLA Chancellor’s fellowship, and has been the recipient of both the graduate and post-doctoral DOE Fusion Science fellowship.

Frederick Skiff, Chair; Martin Greenwald; Jonathan Wurtele; Richard Dendy; Alexander Piel; Christine Labaune