Plasma physics and high energy density science

Akira Hasegawa

Akira Hasegawa (長谷川晃; 1934–2025) was a Japanese theoretical physicist at Osaka University and Bell Laboratories who created the Hasegawa–Mima equation and the 1973 optical soliton theory.

Alexander A. Fridman

Alexander A. Fridman is a plasma physicist and chemist who directs the Nyheim Plasma Institute at Drexel University and is known as a founder of plasma medicine.

Alvin Trivelpiece

Alvin Trivelpiece (1931–2022) was an American plasma physicist known for the Trivelpiece–Gould modes, the textbook Principles of Plasma Physics, and directing Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Anatoly Alexandrovich Vlasov (Анатолий Александрович Власов; 1908–1975) was a Soviet theoretical physicist whose 1938 Vlasov equation became the paradigm of mean-field theory in plasma physics, earning him the 1970 Lenin Prize.

Andrei Victorovich Gaponov-Grekhov

Andrei Victorovich Gaponov-Grekhov (Андрей Викторович Гапонов-Грехов) was a Soviet and Russian physicist whose theory of the cyclotron resonance maser underlies the gyrotron, and who founded the Institute of Applied Physics in Nizhny Novgorod.

Arthur Kantrowitz

Arthur Kantrowitz (1913–2008) was an American physicist who founded the Avco Everett Research Laboratory, where his work produced laser propulsion and the intra-aortic balloon pump for heart failure.

Arthur Pak

Arthur Pak is an American plasma physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who works on inertial confinement fusion and received a 2017 Presidential Early Career Award.

Betsy Ancker-Johnson

Betsy Ancker-Johnson (1927–2020) was an American solid-state plasma physicist who studied electron-hole plasmas in semiconductors and became General Motors' first woman vice president and the first woman vice president in the automotive industry.

Bruno S. Bauer

Bruno S. Bauer is an American plasma physicist, professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, who received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 1997.

Charles E. Treanor

Charles E. Treanor (1924–2012) was an American physicist and engineer at Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory and Calspan, a pioneer of hypersonic flight research known for the Treanor distribution and CVD models.

D. Bruce Montgomery

D. Bruce Montgomery, born Donald Bruce Montgomery, was an American electromagnet and fusion engineer at MIT who co-invented the cable-in-conduit conductor used in fusion devices worldwide.

Daniel B. Sinars

Daniel B. Sinars is an American pulsed-power physicist who directs the Pulsed Power Sciences Center at Sandia National Laboratories and received the 2011 PECASE award.

Daniel Casey

Daniel Thomas Casey is an experimental plasma physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who works on inertial confinement fusion at the National Ignition Facility and received a Presidential Early Career Award.

David Alexander (physicist)

David Alexander is a Scottish-born solar and space plasma physicist, professor at Rice University and Director of the Rice Space Institute, known for research on solar flares and coronal mass ejections.

Edward A. Frieman

Edward A. Frieman (1926–2013) was an American plasma physicist who led fusion theory at Princeton, served in the Department of Energy, and directed Scripps Institution of Oceanography from 1986 to 1996.

Edward I. Moses

Edward I. Moses is an American laser plasma physicist who built and directed the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore, winning the 2009 Edward Teller Medal.

Emil Pfender

Emil Pfender (1925–2016) was a German-born engineer at the University of Minnesota and a leading researcher in thermal plasma science, elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1986.

Hannes Alfvén

Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (1908–1995) was a Swedish plasma physicist who founded magnetohydrodynamics, predicted the Alfvén wave in 1942, and won a share of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Harold Furth

Harold Furth (1930–2002) was an Austrian-born American plasma physicist who directed the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory from 1981 to 1990 and conceived the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor.

Harold K. Forsen

Harold K. Forsen (1932–2012) was an American plasma physicist who worked on fusion at General Atomics, built the University of Wisconsin–Madison's fusion program, and later served as an executive at Exxon Nuclear and Bechtel.

Harold P. Eubank

Harold Porter Eubank was an American physicist who spent 1959 to 1985 at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, heading neutral beam research for magnetic fusion experiments.

Hong Qin

Hong Qin is a theoretical and computational plasma physicist known for structure-preserving geometric algorithms and topological plasma physics, and winner of the 2023 John Dawson Award.

Ian H. Hutchinson

Ian H. Hutchinson is a plasma physicist and Professor Emeritus at MIT who led the Alcator C-Mod tokamak for fusion research and wrote the standard textbook Principles of Plasma Diagnostics.

Ira B. Bernstein

Ira B. Bernstein was an American theoretical plasma physicist at Yale who discovered the Bernstein wave and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1984.

James D. Callen

James D. Callen is a fusion plasma theorist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, a National Academy of Engineering member known for tokamak transport theory.

James R. Asay

James R. Asay is an American shock physicist who spent 32 years at Sandia National Laboratories and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2003.

John M. Dawson

John M. Dawson (1930–2001) was an American computational plasma physicist at Princeton and UCLA, remembered as the father of plasma-based particle accelerators and of computer simulation of plasmas.

John M. Greene

John M. Greene, also known as John Morgan Greene, was an American physicist at Princeton and General Atomics known for the residue criterion and BGK modes.

Jonathan E. Menard

Jonathan E. Menard is a fusion plasma physicist who serves as Deputy Director for Research at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and led the STAR spherical tokamak power-plant design.