Fusion News: MIT News – Petrasso receives Edward Teller Medal
Richard D. Petrasso, head of the High-Energy-Density Physics, won the Edward Teller Medal, an award that recognizes research and leadership in the use of laser and ion-particle beams to produce extraordinarily high-temperature and high-density matter for scientific research and for controlled thermonuclear fusion. As reported by MIT News in their article “Petrasso receives Edward Teller Medal” :
The Fusion Energy Division of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) presented the award on Sept. 11 at the International Inertial Fusion Science and Applications Conference (IFSA) in Nara, Japan. Petrasso was cited “for pioneering the use of nuclear diagnostics for understanding inertial confinement fusion implosions and high-energy-density physics.”
Petrasso joined PSFC in 1983, and began working on inertial confinement fusion in the late 1980’s with his graduate student Chikang Li, who has since become his colleague and associate division head. Over the years, he and his team of researchers and graduate students have developed numerous innovative nuclear diagnostics to measure the internal conditions and dynamics of inertially confined implosions and high-energy density plasmas, collaborating largely with scientists from the Omega Laser Facility at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics and from the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).
