PPPL News Releases

PPPL Scientists Breslau and Gerhardt Receive Presidential Award
July 13, 2009

Plainsboro, New Jersey -- President Obama has named Joshua Breslau and Stefan Gerhardt, physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers. The award is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on young professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. Breslau and Gerhardt are among 100 recipient scientists and engineers who will receive their awards this fall at a White House ceremony.

PPPL recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for 
Scientists and Engineers are Stefan Gerhardt (left) and Josh Breslau.

"These extraordinarily gifted young scientists and engineers represent the best in our country," President Obama said in a White House release issued July 9. "With their talent, creativity, and dedication, I am confident that they will lead their fields in new breakthroughs and discoveries and help us use science and technology to lift up our nation and our world."

Breslau and Gerhardt are among 12 of the honorees from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories.

"PPPL is doubly blessed to have these two outstanding young physicists on our staff. Josh has been a developer of one of the most advanced computer codes in the world fusion community, and has used the code to solve some key problems in fusion plasma physics. Stefan has somehow in his short career had the extraordinary energy and talent to make major contributions to three different approaches to fusion energy," said PPPL Director Stewart Prager.

Breslau was cited for playing an essential role in the development of the massively parallel fusion magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) code M3D and for his original and unique applications of this code to nonlinear dynamics. MHD refers to the dynamics of electrically conducting fluids such as plasmas. Plasma is a hot, gaseous state of matter used as the fuel to produce fusion energy -- the power source of the sun and the stars.

Breslau is a research physicist in computational plasma physics. He conducted post-doctoral research at PPPL for two years before joining the research staff in 2003. He received a bachelor's degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1995 and a master's and a Ph.D. in plasma physics from Princeton University, Department of Astrophysical Sciences, in 1997 and 2001, respectively. Breslau is the author or co-author of close to 30 professional publications. He lives in Lawrenceville.

Gerhardt was cited for his innovative and seminal work by enabling the systematic diagnosis for interpretation of key stability characteristics of a broad range of magnetically-confined toroidal plasmas and for his outstanding contributions to improving understanding of fundamental plasma physics in laboratory plasmas.

He is a staff physicist at PPPL conducting research on the National Spherical Torus Experiment, a fusion machine. He joined the staff in 2004 after receiving a bachelor's interdisciplinary degree in applied math, engineering and physics in 1998, a master's in electrical engineering in 2001 and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 2004, all from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author or co-author of more than 25 journal articles and has given 10 invited talks. He lives in Plainsboro.

The awards, established by President Clinton in February 1996, are coordinated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President. Awardees are selected on the basis of two criteria: Pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and a commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education, or community outreach. Winning scientists and engineers receive up to a five-year research grant to further their study in support of critical government missions.

PPPL, funded by the DOE and managed by Princeton University, is a collaborative national center for science and innovation leading to an attractive fusion energy source. Fusion is the process that powers the sun and the stars. In the interior of stars, matter is converted into energy by the fusion, or joining, of the nuclei of light atoms to form heavier elements. At PPPL, physicists use a magnetic field to confine plasma. Scientists hope eventually to use fusion energy for the generation of electricity.http://www.pppl.gov/

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Print quality photo of Breslau and Gerhardt:  Download 

(Photo by Elle Starkman)