LPS Colloquium: Troy Carter (ORNL)

Description

Bio:
Troy Carter was named Director of Fusion Energy Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in July 2024. Carter oversees the division’s world-class technical capabilities in plasma physics, fusion materials and fusion technologies. He is responsible for developing major projects such as the Materials Plasma Exposure eXperiment, or MPEX, and ORNL’s research contributions to the international ITER experiment.

Carter was previously a professor of physics at the University of California, Los Angeles for 22 years. There Carter was the Director of the Basic Plasma Science Facility, a national collaborative research facility for plasma science supported by DOE and NSF. He was also the Director of the Plasma Science and Technology Institute, an organized research unit at UCLA. His research into waves, instabilities, turbulence and transport in magnetically confined plasmas is motivated by the desire to understand processes in space and astrophysical plasmas as well as by the need to develop carbon-free electricity generation via nuclear fusion. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and is a recipient of the APS DPP John Dawson Excellence in Plasma Physics Research Award.