February 15, 2007 — Ned Sauthoff, an Oak Ridge physicist leading the U.S. role in a global fusion energy project, has been named a Fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Sauthoff, honored for his work in plasma physics and fusion energy, heads the U.S. portion of ITER, a joint effort by China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, the Russian Federation and the United States to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion energy.
ITER, Latin for "the way," will be sited in Cadarache, France. The U.S. ITER Project Office is located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Sauthoff received his bachelor's degree in physics and master's degree in nuclear engineering from MIT in 1972 and his Ph.D. in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University in 1975.
At Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Sauthoff conducted research on plasmas, a super-hot, gas-like substance confined by magnetic field generators, or tokamaks, inside a fusion reactor. He also led the design of control and data systems for the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor and headed the lab's Computer Division, Princeton Beta Experiment, and Experimental Projects, Physics, and Plasma Science and Technology departments.
Prior to establishment in 2006 of the U.S. ITER headquarters at ORNL, he headed PPPL's Off-Site Research Department, where he managed fusion research on leading facilities around the world.
Sauthoff has served as President and Vice-President for Technology Policy for IEEE-USA. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
More information on the U.S. and global ITER effort is available at https://www.usiter.org/ and https://www.usiter.org/.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Ener