Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering David Ruzic has been named the recipient of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society 2020 Fusion Technology Award.
According to the award letter, “This award has been bestowed on you in recognition of your extensive research into plasma-material interactions and for your leadership at the University of Illinois that set up the Center for Plasma Material Interactions and promoting international symposia to study liquid metals for reactor walls.”
“This is quite an honor, especially to be nominated by [NPRE Professor Emeritus] George Miley," Ruzic said. "He won the award in 2003 and has been an inspiration for my work in fusion technology.”
This also recognizes the research in the use of lithium for divertors and Tokamak walls. Experimental tests of the self-flowing lithium design are being used on large scale machines now.
The award will be presented at the conference banquet during the 2020 edition of the Symposium on Fusion Engineering (SOFE), to be held in Denver, Colorado from May 31st to June 4th, 2021.
Ruzic also recently won the AVS Gaede-Langmuir Award and will head up the Illinois Plasma Institute, under construction now in Research Park.
“It is great that the technology of getting fusion to work is considered important," Ruzic said. "It is one thing to say, ‘We can do this in theory.’ It is quite another to do it in practice.”