Jeanne Jackson DeVoe

April 28, 2025

Title & Department: Electromechanical Technician, Engineering Directorate 

Year started at PPPL: 2019

Austin Jones’ work on the Facility for Laboratory Reconnection Experiments (FLARE) at the  U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), in a sense, brings his career full circle. As a senior airman working for the Air Force’s 374th Communications Squadron at the beginning of his career, Jones and his team sometimes worried about solar flares and other events that might interfere with the communications satellites they worked on.

As an electromechanical technician for FLARE, Jones is responsible for installing power systems for an experiment that will help scientists understand solar flares and other astrophysical phenomena that can disrupt satellites and power grids.

“I never really thought about astrophysics before I came here, and I find it very interesting,” he said. “I think it’s going to be pretty powerful science that’s going to come out of this project.” 

A career in technology 

Jones had 20 years of experience designing and building technology when he came to PPPL in 2019. The job description for the role he now holds seemed custom-built for him, he recalled. He had experience with high voltage machinery, direct current electronics and small capacitors. “It was basically a rundown of my resume,” he said.

Jones and the FLARE team are looking forward to the experiment beginning operations in the summer of 2025. 

FLARE is a one-of-a-kind device designed to probe the physics behind magnetic reconnection, one of the most fundamental, yet still not fully understood, phenomena in the universe. It is the first machine in the world to allow experiments probing magnetic reconnection under conditions that more closely match those in outer space. 

The device was originally constructed at Princeton University’s main campus and funded by the National Science Foundation, Princeton University and others. It was moved to PPPL, where Jones and other technicians have been upgrading its infrastructure and power system to make it nine times as powerful as the previous version of the experiment. The upgrade was supported by DOE and Princeton University.

Jones and the FLARE team installed capacitor banks in the lower level of FLARE that connect with the powerful magnets that will control the plasma during plasma experiments. The FLARE team recently achieved a milestone when they successfully completed testing all the magnets at the nominal currents needed to create a plasma and start conducting experiments. 

“Austin’s work on FLARE has been invaluable,” said Luke Perkins, the senior project manager on the FLARE project. “I truly appreciate his ability to find the most pragmatic, straightforward, cost-effective hardware solution to the most complex implementation problems.”

An early interest in mechanics

Jones has had a talent and passion for anything mechanical for most of his life. He grew up in Zanesville, Ohio, and helped his father repair lawn mowers and engines in his repair shop. He eventually started his own lawn mowing business in high school. Jones studied electrical engineering at Muskingum Area Technical College (now Zane State College) for two years. After graduation, he joined the U.S. Air Force in 2002. After a year of training, he worked on communications satellite systems during a two-year stint at Camp Zama in Japan and a year at McGuire Air Force Base. 

After the Air Force, Jones worked at Schlumberger (now SLB), which provides global services to oil companies, including designing, building and selling oil well logging equipment. Working at the company gave Jones experience with nuclear generators since it used a small neutron generator in one of its detectors to test what elements are in a given oil well. Jones also helped invent some of those devices and holds a patent with several others for an X-ray density tool.

Jones left Schlumberger after 10 years when the company moved its headquarters to Texas. He then worked as a technician at several technical companies, including Teledyne Princeton Instruments, Lockheed Martin and SAM Inc. before coming to PPPL.

When people ask Jones what he does at PPPL, “I tell them I build things. I help build experiments.” He said he likes the hands-on nature of his work. “I want to feel like I’ve accomplished something at the end of the day and finish what I’m doing on that day,” he said. “If I don’t, I feel like I haven’t done it right.”
 

Six children

Jones met his wife, Jessica, when he was stationed at McGuire Air Force Base. The couple lives in Burlington Township, New Jersey. Jessica Jones always wanted a big family. They are the proud parents of six children: Jacob, 17, Tianna, 13, Jane, 12, Aidan, 12, Mia Joy, 11, and Quinn, 7.

Jessica Jones, who has a master’s degree in curriculum and special education, homeschools some of their younger children, and the family belongs to a homeschool co-op where Jessica Jones teaches.

Describe your job 

“I built a lot of the capacitor banks on FLARE and wired them. I do anything that needs to be built or wired to the experiment. I worked on connecting the magnets in FLARE to electrical power and any mechanical tasks, with help from others. I’ve also worked on MRX (the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment) and LTX-ꞵ (Lithium Tokamak Experiment-ꞵ).”
 

Three things about yourself

1. “My wife and I are very involved in our church. We both directed the music program. She still sings, plays keyboard and works in the children’s ministry, and I am currently the sound and media director.”
    
2. “My family likes to go on hikes. I like getting outdoors, especially in the summer.”
    
3. “I’m from Ohio, but I root for the Green Bay Packers and the New York Yankees.”
    

What does safety mean to you? 

“It’s very important. If we’re working safely, we’re actually doing our job to the best of our ability. Cutting corners doesn’t work. You might get done quicker, but it isn’t really getting everything done properly.”
 

What does working at PPPL mean to you? 

“It is very interesting to work in a lab that is doing next-generation research. I want to see what’s going to happen next. What are we going to learn? As for fusion energy, it is difficult to achieve, but if we do achieve it, it’s going to change society as we know it.”