rosenbluth thesis award

Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award

This award recognizes exceptional early-career scientists who have performed original thesis work of outstanding scientific quality and achievement in the area of plasma physics. The award consists of $2,000, a certificate, and a registration waiver to give an invited talk on the recipient’s doctoral research at the annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics (DPP), and receive the award at the DPP awards banquet.

Rules and eligibility

Nominations will be accepted for any doctoral student of a college or university in the United States or for a United States student abroad who has successfully passed his/her final thesis defense within the preceding 24 months of the current nomination deadline. The work to be considered must have been performed as part of the requirements for a doctoral degree. Nomination packages should include a copy of the candidate's thesis. Nominations will be considered for two review cycles provided the nominator re-certifies the nomination before the next deadline. Updated letters of support may be submitted for the second cycle.

Process and selection

The nomination package should include:

• APS Prizes and Awards nomination form (nominee’s contact information, thesis date).
• Your letter of not more than 1,000 words evaluating the nominee's qualifications for the award.
• At least two, but no more than four, seconding letters of not more than 1000 words each. Primary and seconding letters exceeding 1000 words will not be considered in the evaluation of nominees.
• The nominee's thesis.
• A list of the nominee's publications and presentations related to the thesis.

Selection Committee

• Peng Zhang (Chair)
• Felicie Albert
• Nathaniel Fisch
• Dustin Froula

Establishment and support

This award was established in 1985 (originally as the Simon Ramo Award and formerly as the Outstanding Doctoral Thesis in Plasma Physics Award) and endowed in 1997 by General Atomics Inc .

Recent recipients

Ian emanuel ochs.

2023 recipient

For developing rigorous constraints on charge extraction across magnetic fields and powerful theorems relating lower hybrid current drive to alpha channeling, and for studying unusual transport effects with diverse applications in multi-species magnetized plasmas.

Alison R. Christopherson

2022 recipient

For theories of fusion alpha heating and metrics to assess proximity to thermonuclear ignition in inertially confined plasmas, and for the development of a novel measurement of hot electron preheat and its spatial distribution in direct-drive laser fusion.

Elizabeth Paul

2021 recipient

For pioneering the development of adjoint methods and application of shape calculus for fusion plasmas, enabling a new derivative-based method of stellarator design.

2020 recipient

For elegantly describing three-wave coupling in plasma modified by oblique magnetic fields, identifying applications including plasma-based laser amplifiers, and adapting quantum field theory to describe plasma physics in the strong-field regime.

2019 recipient

For the development of electron-plasma-based techniques to study two-dimensional vortex dynamics in the presence of strong external flows and for investigation of the stability and self-organization of vortices in strain flows.

The membership of APS is diverse and global, and the nominees and recipients of APS Honors should reflect that diversity so that all are recognized for their impact on our community. Nominations of members belonging to groups traditionally underrepresented in physics, such as women, LGBT+ scientists, scientists who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), disabled scientists, scientists from institutions with limited resources, and scientists from outside the United States, are especially encouraged.

Nominees for and holders of APS Honors (prizes, awards, and fellowship) and official leadership positions are expected to meet standards of professional conduct and integrity as described in the APS Ethics Guidelines . Violations of these standards may disqualify people from consideration or lead to revocation of honors or removal from office.

Join your Society

If you embrace scientific discovery, truth and integrity, partnership, inclusion, and lifelong curiosity, this is your professional home.

Princeton alumna and postdoctoral fellow wins award for groundbreaking plasma physics

Elizabeth Paul, a groundbreaking physicist who is a 2015 alumna and a  2020 Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow  at Princeton University and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has won the prestigious and highly competitive 2021 Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award.

Elizabeth Paul, a 2020 Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow and member of the Class of 2015

“I feel extremely honored to receive this award,” said Paul, who works with Amitava Bhattacharjee , a professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton and the former Head of Theory at PPPL. “There’s only one plasma physicist every year who receives this award, and there are very many recent Ph.D. students who have done high-quality research.”

Paul, a native of Portland, Oregon, earned her undergraduate degree in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University in 2015 and her doctorate in physics from the University of Maryland in 2020.

“When I came to Princeton, I didn’t exactly know what I would major in,” she said. “But as a Princeton undergraduate, I was exposed to plasma physics research, and that had a big impact on my career.”

One aspect that drew her strongly to plasma physics and stellarators “is the potential benefit to humanity,” she said, echoing Princeton’s informal motto, “in the nation’s service and the service of humanity.”

“But also, plasma physics itself is a really interesting subject with a lot of complex phenomena,” she said. “There’s a lot of mathematical beauty that comes into understanding stellarators.”

Paul finds that combination of mathematical beauty and service compelling. “I enjoy problems that are at the intersection of the mathematical and the physical,” she said. “I like something that’s practical and that you can use some theoretical tools to understand. That’s what makes plasma physics such an exciting field.”

The award, presented by the American Physical Society, honors Paul’s dissertation, which applied a mathematical tool used to design cars and airplanes to advance the development of stellarators — twisty magnetic bottles that aim to produce on Earth the fusion energy that drives the sun and stars.

Fusion energy produced by stellarators — or more widely used doughnut-shaped tokamak devices, like the one at PPPL — could become a virtually limitless source of safe and clean power for generating electricity.

“Elizabeth has made a masterful contribution to stellarator design, combining an elegant mathematical technique that speeds up existing computational methods by orders of magnitude and implementing the method with physical insight to obtain striking results,” said Bhattacharjee. “Her thesis is unusual for its maturity and technical command.” 

The Marshall N. Rosenbluth award, named for a world leader in plasma physics , honors “exceptional young scientists who have performed original thesis work of outstanding scientific quality and achievement in the area of plasma physics.” The award specifically recognizes Paul “for pioneering the development of adjoint methods and application of shape calculus for fusion plasmas, enabling a new derivative-based method of stellarator design.”

Paul is pursuing a variety of interests as a Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow, a three-year designation that in her case will be funded by the University for the first two years, then PPPL for the third. “I have a lot of freedom and can study what I want to study,” she said. 

Her interests range from extending her dissertation work to understanding the transport of heat in chaotic magnetic fields and optimizing stellarators for experimental flexibility. In the coming months, she plans to study of energetic particles in stellarators with Bhattacharjee and Roscoe White, a recently retired PPPL physicist who is now a senior researcher.

For the past three years, Paul has been writing a book on stellarators with Adelle Wright, an associate research physicist at PPPL, and Lise-Marie Imbert-Gerard, a mathematics professor at the University of Arizona. The Simons Foundation in New York City supported this work and used an early version of their book in a summer school class co-sponsored by PPPL. 

PPPL, on Princeton University's Forrestal Campus in Plainsboro, N.J., is devoted to creating new knowledge about the physics of plasmas — ultra-hot, charged gases — and to developing practical solutions for the creation of fusion energy. The Laboratory is managed by the University for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit energy.gov/science .

More on fusion research and innovation

Visiting officials from DOE's Office of Science learn about PPPL’s expanded mission

Science on Saturday at PPPL returns in person for the first time in 3 years

PPPL apprenticeship program to train highly-skilled technicians is a national model

DOE extends University PPPL contract

A timeline of innovation and impact at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

Energy leaders are convening at the White House for a summit on the commercialization of clean fusion energy

Fisch receives funding for 'unlikely but fantastic' clean energy technology

PPPL researcher's work yields a breakthrough for a promising fusion-energy device

White House and U.S. Department of Energy leaders meet at PPPL to discuss accelerating timeline to produce electricity from fusion energy

How the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab contributed to the new world record in clean fusion energy

Massive underground instrument finds final secret of our sun’s fusion

Astrophysicist Kunz receives NSF award for research and for establishing plasma physics summer school aimed at attracting underrepresented students to field

Princeton’s new supercomputer, Traverse, to accelerate scientific discovery in fusion research

New national facility will explore low-temperature plasma — a dynamic source of innovation for modern technologies

Artificial intelligence accelerates efforts to develop clean, virtually limitless fusion energy

'Ghost' particles, gliding through sun, reveal inner workings of solar furnace

‘These Vibes Are Too Cosmic’ brings science to WPRB

Fisch receives Fusion Power Associates’ Distinguished Career Award

Secretary of Energy Perry says PPPL research has potential to ‘change the world’

Princeton astrophysicist Bhattacharjee leads team to create framework for an optimal fusion energy device

Princeton senior's thesis project makes material difference in quest for fusion energy

William Tang wins 2018 Global Impact Award to advance development of AI software to help create a 'star on earth’

First plasma for new machine to study process that occurs throughout the universe

Artificial intelligence helps accelerate progress toward efficient fusion reactions

• Our Purpose

Our Science and Technology

• Join Our Team
• Partner with Us
• Community and Education

• Advanced Materials and Manufacturing

Bioscience and Bioengineering

• Earth and Atmospheric Science

Facilities, Centers and Institutes

High Energy Density Science

• HPC, Simulation and Data Science

Lasers & Optical Science and Technology

Nuclear, Chemical & Isotopic Science and Technology

Learn How We Make Science and Technology Happen

We support diverse research activities with talented staff, state-of-the-art facilities and core competencies. From internal collaboration to external partnerships, we work together to advance scientific discovery.

Learn More About Our Science and Technology

• Media Contacts
• Media Library
• Publications
• Fact Sheets
• Social Media

Celebrating the Milestone of Fusion Ignition

In 2022, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory made history by demonstrating fusion ignition for the first time in a laboratory setting. Read about the people, facilities, capabilities and decades of tenacity that made this achievement possible.

Read about our fusion breakthrough

Lab scientist wins outstanding doctoral thesis award from American Physical Society

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Alison Ruth Christopherson has earned the American Physical Society’s Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis award.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientist Alison Ruth Christopherson has earned the American Physical Society’s (APS) Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis award.

The award recognizes exceptional early-career scientists who have performed original thesis work of outstanding scientific quality and achievement in the area of plasma physics.

Christopherson was honored “for theories of fusion alpha heating and metrics to assess proximity to thermonuclear ignition in inertially confined plasmas, and for the development of a novel measurement of hot electron preheat and its spatial distribution in direct-drive laser fusion.”

“It is an honor to receive an award named after the extraordinary scientist Marshall Rosenbluth whose brilliance laid the foundations for multiple fields within plasma physics,” Christopherson said. “He set the bar impossibly high for the rest of us.”

Christopherson acknowledged that the accomplishments detailed in her thesis would not have been possible without the support of her adviser Riccardo Betti and her colleagues at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics who assisted with this research. “Inertial confinement fusion is a team oriented field and this award reflects their contributions as well,” she added. 

Omar Hurricane, chief scientist for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory inertial confinement fusion (ICF) program, co-nominated Christopherson for the award. 

“Marshall Rosenbluth was arguably the greatest fusion plasma theorist of his generation,” Hurricane said. “These days in plasma physics simulations have displaced theory, and the problem is particularly acute for ICF. As a result, there are very few true theorists being generated by plasma physics programs and fewer still in the subspecialty of ICF or high energy density physics. Alison is a rare exception, choosing to pursue theory as a graduate student and studying under another rare ICF theorist, Riccardo Betti.”

Hurricane said an important aspect of Christopherson’s theory work is that her work has been tied to reality through experiments and cross-checked with simulations.

“The timing of Alison’s work has been very complementary to our own work here at LLNL and has made an impact upon our thinking about the physics,” Hurricane said. “Starting her graduate studies in 2013 was fortuitous timing because an untapped physics regime [of the transition to significant alpha-heating in experiments at NIF] revealed itself around that same time.”

The award consists of $2,000, a certificate and a registration waiver to give an invited talk on the recipient’s doctoral research at the annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics (DPP). Christopherson will receive the award at the annual DPP awards banquet in October.

Related Links

Featured articles.

• Our Mission
• Management and Sponsors
• Our History - 1950s
• Our History - 1960s
• Our History - 1970s
• Our History - 1980s
• Our History - 1990s
• Our History - 2000s
• Our History - 2010s
• Our History - 2020s
• Bioscience & Bioengineering
• Facilities and Centers
• High-Energy-Density Science
• Lasers and Optical Science and Technology
• Nuclear, Chemical and Isotopic Science and Technology
• Career Areas
• Events & Resources
• LCA Notifications
• Affiliate Opportunities
• Accessibility
• Partner With Us
• Discovery Center
• Community Giving
• Science Education
• Environment, Safety, and Health
• In Memoriam
• Our Leadership
• By the Numbers
• Operations and Business
• Protocol and Special Events

• Our Purpose
• Our Science and Technology
• Join Our Team
• Partner with Us
• Community and Education

Laboratory scientist wins outstanding doctoral thesis award

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) physicist Yuan Shi has earned the American Physical Society’s (APS) Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis award for his work in plasma physics.

The award recognizes exceptional young scientists who have performed original thesis work of outstanding scientific quality and achievement in plasma physics. The citation on his award certificate reads: “For elegantly describing three-wave coupling in plasma modified by oblique magnetic fields, identifying applications including plasma-based laser amplifiers and adapting quantum field theory to describe plasma physics in the strong-field regime.”

“ When I got the award notification, I was surprised and thrilled,” Shi said. “I was surprised because I know of many outstanding theses that weren’t selected for the award. My thesis was finished in 2018 at Princeton University and it wasn’t selected last year, so I wasn’t expecting it to be selected this year either — so it was surprising news when it arrived.”

Shi attributes his success in the field to his Ph.D. advisers, professors Nathaniel Fisch and Hong Qin, “for guiding me through the journey.”

“It is a great honor to be selected for the Marshall N. Rosenbluth award, the highest award a Ph.D. student in plasma physics could expect,” he said. “I’m really happy that the committee recognizes the scientific quality of my work.”

Shi’s thesis, entitled “ Plasma Physics in Strong Field Regimes,” was conducted at Princeton University. Based on his new results of the classical plasma model, the role of strong magnetic fields during laser-plasma interactions can now be understood. Moreover, his new quantum electrodynamics (QED) models for plasmas make it possible to understand strong-field QED effects in astrophysical environments and test them in laboratory settings.

Shi’s future research includes extending his thesis topics and bridging them in new directions. His thesis work on magnetized laser-plasma interaction is being extended to modeling conditions relevant to magnetized inertial confinement fusion experiments and also has been expanded to developing plasma photonic techniques to produce, for example, bright quantum light for quantum sensing and communication applications. His work on relativistic-quantum plasmas is being utilized to develop algorithms for quantum computers, which the team at LLNL has successfully implemented recently. In addition, Shi is trying to extend his QED plasma theory to hypothetical particles, which may contribute to the dark matter and dark energy contents of our universe.

Shi earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from the University of Hong Kong with minors in chemistry and biology. He earned his master’s degree and Ph.D. in astrophysical sciences, plasma physics program, from Princeton University. There, he did an experimental project on laser diagnostics of Hall thrusters and a computational project on gyrokinetic turbulence, before completing his thesis project on strong-field plasma physics.

Shi is a recipient of the Rosita King Ho Scholarship and the Carl Oberman Fellowship.

The APS award consists of $2,000, a certificate and a registration waiver to give an invited talk on the recipient’s doctoral research at the annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics (DPP). Shi will receive the award at the awards banquet. This award was established in 1985 (originally as the Simon Ramo Award and formerly as the Outstanding Doctoral Thesis in Plasma Physics Award) and endowed in 1997 by General Atomics Inc.

• Core Competencies
• Unique Facilities
• Lab Directed Research and Development
• Institutional Initiatives
• Research Integrity
• S&T Highlights
• Recognition
• Director's Awards
• Journal Covers
• A Look Back
• LLNL Institutes/Centers
• Current and Former Lawrence Fellows
• Lawrence Fellowship: Learn more and apply
• Career Development & Network Activities
• Life Around the Lab
• Lawrence Livermore Postdoc Association
• Research SLAM!
• Internally Sponsored Internships
• Externally Sponsored Internships
• Fun with Science
• Application Process
• Camp Activities
• Biotech Summer Experience
• Manufacturing Workshop
• STEM with Phones
• STEM San Joaquin
• Science on Saturday
• Teacher Research Academy
• Physics with Phones Introduction and Links
• Understanding Motion
• Exploring Acceleration
• Exploring Friction & Mechanics
• The Physics of Rotational Motion
• Moment of Inertia
• Investigating Impulse and Momentum
• The Science of Collisions
• Measuring the Pressure Around Us
• A Foundation for Understanding Waves
• Mechanical Waves and Sound
• Experimenting with Electromagnetic Waves
• Exploring Magnetic Fields in the World Around You
• Making Digital Measurements and Quantifying Uncertainty
• Virtual Discovery Center
• Virtual Tours and Class Visits
• Ambassador Lecture Series
• Faculty Sabbatical Program
• Science Education
• Postdoc Opportunities
• Student Opportunities
• About Us: Academic Engagement Office
• Innovation and Partnerships Office
• Research Library

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

Doctoral graduate yuan shi wins 2020 marshall n. rosenbluth outstanding doctoral thesis award.

Physicist Yuan Shi. (Photo courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.)

Physicist Yuan Shi, who received his doctorate from the Princeton Program in Plasma Physics in 2018, has won the prestigious 2020 Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award presented by the American Physical Society (APS).  The award recognizes “exceptional young scientists who have performed original doctoral thesis research of outstanding scientific quality and achievement in the area of plasma physics.” 

The 2020 honor recognizes Shi’s thesis with the citation:  “For elegantly describing three-wave coupling in plasma modified by oblique magnetic fields, identifying applications including plasma-based laser amplifiers, and adapting quantum field theory to describe plasma physics in the strong-field regime.”

Intense laser beams

The “three-wave coupling in plasma” includes the classic interaction of intense laser beams propagating in plasma, where the energy contained in one laser beam can be transferred to the other two beams.  If the energy in a long laser pulse is captured by a short laser pulse, the laser intensity can be significantly amplified.  The “strong-field regime” refers to the regime in which electromagnetic fields are so intense that relativistic-quantum effects must be considered, such as virtual pairs of particles and anti-particles that undergo constant creation and annihilation, modifying the plasma environment. 

Shi was advised in his thesis by Professors Nat Fisch and Hong Qin.  Fisch is Professor of Astrophysical Sciences, Director of the Program in Plasma Physics at Princeton University, and Associate Director for Academic Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).  Qin is Principle Research Physicist at PPPL and Lecturer with the rank of Professor in the Program in Plasma Physics.

A rare combination

“Yuan is the kind of student who teaches his advisors new things,” Fisch said.“Yuan’s thesis is a rare combination of significant advances in fundamental theory and computation, with profound recognition of connections between seemingly far-flung topics.  It is a textbook-quality thesis that advances our understanding of magnetized plasma implosions, plasma-based laser amplification, and numerical methods to describe strong-field QED plasmas.”

When asked what had led to his success, Shi said, “I am deeply indebted to my thesis advisors. As it turned out, in having two advisors, I benefited not just from the intersection of their research interests, but also from the union of their research interests and styles.  If working with Hong was more about elegant theories and algorithms, then working with Nat was more about imaginative ideas.  Together they enabled me to find synergies between quantum field theory and plasma physics, and thus to pursue a certain brand of research that would be hard to imagine as available in graduate programs anywhere else in the world.” 

New ideas and methods

Qin noted that “a contributing factor to Yuan’s success has been his ability to absorb the full range of scientific opportunities at Princeton,” said co-advisor Qin.  “Outside the plasma program, Yuan took more than 10 courses offered at Princeton University, which allowed him to bring new ideas and methods into his plasma research. Thus, his thesis introduced lattice QED [Quantum Electrodynamics] as a simulation tool, which, while unheard of in plasma physics, is well known in nuclear physics. He then used these techniques to model, among other phenomena, intense lasers interacting with plasmas.”

Shi earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Hong Kong, where he majored in physics and mathematics and minored in chemistry. His Ph.D. thesis research was supported in part through research grants from the National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), and the DOE Office of Science.

Shi is now a Lawrence Postdoctoral Fellow at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where he and others are extending his thesis research in new directions. One direction is magnetized inertial confinement fusion (ICF), where external magnetic fields are imposed upon laser-driven plasma capsules with the hope of achieving higher fusion yield leading eventually to ignited plasma.

“The magnetic field may change laser-plasma interactions (LPI) and modify crossbeam laser energy transfer,” Shi said.  “This process, which was in part addressed in my thesis, needs to be understood and mitigated in order to attain the desired drive symmetry in ICF.”

Integrating fusion and quantum science

Another activity set in motion by Shi’s thesis lies in the integration of fusion energy science with quantum materials and devices, which has become a research priority in the field of plasma physics following the passage of the National Quantum Initiative Act by Congress.  At Livermore, Shi recently showed how the classic three-wave coupling in plasma that his thesis explored could be simulated on a quantum computer.  “Yuan’s thesis work on quantum plasmas actually anticipated the current interest in the field,” said Qin.  “His development of algorithms for quantum computers that solve plasma problems is now a remarkable new direction of research.”

Added Fisch, “Yuan’s thesis was indeed a remarkable achievement. But the real impact of his thesis may lie in what Yuan is now doing in his even more exciting postdoctoral work. He is bringing his ideas on laser plasma interactions to inform on experiments in magnetized imploding plasma in the most extreme environments of high magnetic fields and pressures. And he is formulating new algorithms for quantum computers. As proud as we were to have Yuan as a student, we are even prouder to see him shine now in his dazzling new research accomplishments.”

Shi will receive the Rosenbluth award during the annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics that will be held online in November.  The award is named for the pioneering physicist whose career included 13 years as a visiting research scientist at PPPL. Included in the award is $2,000, a certificate, and an invitation to present a talk to the conference.

Shi becomes the eighth graduate of the Program in Plasma Physics to receive the Rosenbluth honor since the APS first awarded it in 1986. Previous winners were: Carey Forest, 1992; Michael Beer, 1996; Mark Herrmann, 2000; Yang Ren, 2008; Jong-Kyu Park, 2010; Jonathan Squire, 2017; and Seth Davidovits, 2018. 

The Program in Plasma Physics is a graduate program within the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. Students are admitted directly to the program and are granted degrees through the Department of Astrophysical Sciences.  The program is based  at PPPL.

The award announcement appears on the APS website:  https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/rosenbluth.cfm

PPPL is mastering the art of using plasma — the fourth state of matter — to solve some of the world's toughest science and technology challenges. Nestled on Princeton University’s Forrestal Campus in Plainsboro, New Jersey, our research ignites innovation in a range of applications including fusion energy, nanoscale fabrication, quantum materials and devices, and sustainability science. The University manages the Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which is the nation’s single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences. Feel the heat at https://energy.gov/science  and  https://www.pppl.gov .  

Department of Astrophysical Sciences

Seth Davidovits wins 2018 Marshall N. Rosenbluth dissertation award

Seth Davidovits

Seth Davidovits, a 2017 graduate of the Program in Plasma Physics in the Princeton University Department of Astrophysical Sciences, has won the 2018 Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award presented by the American Physical Society (APS). The award, named for distinguished plasma physicist Marshall Rosenbluth whose career included 13 years at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) from 1967 to 1980, recognizes “exceptional young scientists who have performed original thesis work of outstanding scientific quality and achievement in the area of plasma physics.” 

Davidovits’ dissertation focused on the theory and simulation of turbulence in compressing fluids, with an emphasis on effects unique to plasma, such as a novel sudden viscous dissipation mechanism. These investigations led to a variety of insights, and a new model for turbulence in compressing plasma; the dissertation also applied these insights in a variety of application areas, including inertial-confinement-fusion and astrophysical plasmas. His thesis adviser was Professor Nat Fisch, Professor of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University and Director of the Program in Plasma Physics, which is based at PPPL.

“The way we originally got onto this topic was through experiments by Professor Yitzhak Maron at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel,” Davidovits said. “The results were pretty unexpected and led us to look for new ways to exploit or prevent turbulence in compressed plasma.” 

A native of Andover, Massachusetts, Davidovits was named to an all-conference doubles team as a tennis player in high school. He earned a B.A. in applied physics from Columbia University in 2010, graduating as valedictorian of Columbia Engineering. As a graduate student at Princeton, he held a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship. 

His thesis research was supported in part through research grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), and the National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) of the DOE.  The Israeli Binational Science Foundation, through a joint program with NSF, supported related experimental research at the Weizmann Institute.

“This thesis was a remarkable achievement,” Professor Fisch said. “It features impressive and comprehensive advances across theoretical, computational, and experimental plasma physics, exploring very fundamental phenomena which happen to have clear applications. Through the support of the NSF and the joint NSF-BSF program, Seth was also able to work with the Weizmann group to develop a new way of accounting for turbulence in interpreting data.  That led to greater internal compatibility within multiple methods of measurement, which in turn lent additional support for the unusual results previously reported by Weizmann.  With this grounding in experiment, this thesis is now positioned to be unusually influential.”

Davidovits is now a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton, where he holds a DOE Fusion Energy Sciences postdoctoral fellowship. He is a member of the American Physical Society and was chosen as a 2018 Howes Scholar. Dr. Davidovits continues to pursue the compression of turbulent plasma, with applications in inertial-confinement-fusion experiments, Z-pinch experiments, and astrophysical plasmas. 

Davidovits becomes the seventh graduate of the Program in Plasma Physics to receive the Rosenbluth honor since the APS first awarded it in 1986. Previous winners were: Cary Forest, 1992; Michael Beer, 1996; Mark Herrmann, 2000; Yang Ren, 2008; Jong-Kyu Park, 2010; and Jonathan Squire, 2017. 

The Program in Plasma Physics is a graduate program within the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. Students are admitted directly to the program and are granted degrees through the Department of Astrophysical Sciences. The award announcement appears on the APS website: https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/rosenbluth.cfm&nbsp ;