While conducting research at national labs in California recently, Stefano Markidis, a graduate student in Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering, met and was photographed with newly appointed Secretary of Energy Steven Chu.
Chu is Director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and is a physics professor at UC-Berkeley. Markidis, advised by NPRE Prof. Rizwan Uddin, is studying the means to develop implicit kinetic simulation methods and their application to ion beam propagation in current and future neutralized drift compression experiments.
An early advocate for finding scientific solutions to climate change, Chu has guided Berkeley Lab on a new mission to become the world leader in alternative and renewable energy research, particularly the development of carbon-neutral sources of energy. He was co-winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics "for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light."
Contact: Susan Mumm editor/alumni affairs coordinator, Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering, 217/244-5382 (campus office), 217/821-6866 (cell) 217/347-2166 (home office)