Leadership changes

Mike Bonkalski, the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory’s (PPPL) new head of Environment, Safety, and Health (ES&H), brings almost 30 years of experience at two national laboratories to the position that oversees health and safety at a crucial time for the Laboratory as it begins several major projects.

Bonkalski begins his new position in the midst of the curtailment of operations at PPPL during the coronavirus pandemic. Bonkalski is communicating remotely from 829 miles away in Geneva, Illinois, with his staff of 48 people in New Jersey.

It is possible that no one at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory  (PPPL) has deeper roots here than Bob Ellis. The son of a well-known physicist, Ellis has spent almost four decades designing and overseeing construction of components of some of the world’s biggest fusion experiments, from PPPL’s Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) and the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U),  to the Joint European Torus in England and the Korean Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) fusion reactor in South Korea. 

Jon Menard, the head of research on the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has been named the new PPPL deputy director for research. He replaces Michael Zarnstorff, the deputy director for the past decade, who becomes the chief scientist at PPPL, a position that will oversee strategic scientific planning.

Craig Ferguson, a leader with more than 25 years of experience at U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories and other federal facilities, will become deputy director for operations and chief operating officer at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) after a nationwide search. He will begin on Feb. 4.