2012

Top row from left: Dmitry Ryutov, John Castor, Jim Candy, Tom Slezak, and Omar Hurricane.
Bottom row from left: Jim Hammer, Bruce Remington, Nino Landen, Ken Moody, and Neil Joeck.

Ten LLNL researchers were named Distinguished Members of Technical Staff (DMTS) in 2012 (affiliations are in parentheses):

• Jim Candy (Engineering)
• John Castor (Weapons and Complex Integration)
• Jim Hammer (Weapons and Complex Integration)
• Omar Hurricane (Weapons and Complex Integration)
• Neil Joeck (Global Security)
• Nino Landen (National Ignition Facility)
• Ken Moody (Physical and Life Sciences)
• Bruce Remington (National Ignition Facility)
• Dmitri Ryutov (Physical and Life Sciences)
• Tom Slezak (Computation)

Jim Candy

Jim Candy has more than 36 years at the Laboratory in signal and image processing, which has made fundamental impacts inside and outside the Laboratory, where he has been called one of LLNL's "natural resources." His work is a critical element in a wide range of Lab projects and disciplines. Jim's work at LLNL has spanned a broad variety of technical areas, programs, and work-for-others projects, bringing national and international recognition to himself and the Laboratory with his novel signal and imaging processing research and development.

John Castor

In his 30 years at the Laboratory, John Castor has made a name for himself inside and outside the weapons labs. His initial theoretical work in astrophysics on the theory of stellar pulsation led him to the study of non-local thermodynamics equilibrium processes in stellar atmospheres. His work on the theory of radiatively-driven stellar wind — the astrophysical work for which he is best known — allowed him to draw up a paper in 1975 that is widely considered one of the most influential papers in astrophysics of the 1970s and 1980s, with more than 1,000 citations. Castor joined the Laboratory in 1981 and he linked up with the secondary design physics division where he has been ever since. His efforts went from radiation transport techniques and applications in astrophysics to physical databases for the simulation codes to other studies such as the dynamics of missile flight. Recently, he has advised the NIF Ignition Campaign on material property questions.

Jim Hammer

Jim Hammer has been a physicist at the Laboratory since 1979, starting in the magnetic fusion area, then joining the Inertial Confinement Fusion Program in the early 1990s and continuing into A Program. He is recognized for the invention and demonstration of new fusion and high-energy-density concepts as well as groundbreaking science. Initially working on the Lab's spheromak experiment, he went on to come up with the idea that led to what is now known as "fast ignition." He also has worked on pulsed-power driven fast Z-pinches and the energy balance issue in the weapons program — he identified a previously unrecognized physical effect that plays a dominant role.

Omar Hurricane

Omar Hurricane's impact on the important core LLNL mission of Stockpile Stewardship has been well recognized as transformative. He has established himself as a leading authority in secondary design physics as well as high-energy-density plasma physics. In 2009, he won the E.O. Lawrence Award for national security and nonproliferation, one of the highlights of his 18-year LLNL career. He won the award for providing the dominant solution to a 60-year-old problem in weapons design that is euphemistically called "energy balance." The implication is that underground nuclear tests will no longer be required to establish this empirical parameter and the design uncertainty associated with this phenomenon has been significantly reduced.

Neil Joeck

Neil Joeck, a 25-year Lab veteran in Z Division and the Center for Global Security Research, has conducted career-long work on weapons of mass destruction in South Asia, a subject in which he is recognized as a world expert in the academic community, the U.S. government national security community, and South Asia political circles. Joeck's seminal work in 1995 and 1998 at Z Division, in 2001 and 2002 at the State Department, in 2005 at the National Security Council, and in 2010 as National Intelligence Officer for South Asia provided unique insights, which drove senior U.S. government officials to formulate and implement policies that helped to reduce the nuclear and terrorist threat in South Asia.

Nino Landen

Twenty-eight year Lab veteran Nino Landen has made outstanding experimental and analytical contributions to inertial fusion and high-energy-density plasma physics. He has demonstrated sustained innovation in x-ray based plasma experimental techniques and analysis. Landen's key areas of research have included short-pulse laser–plasma interaction, radiation transport experiments, and ignition tuning as part of the National Ignition Campaign.

Ken Moody

Ken Moody, a 26-year Laboratory veteran, joined the Heavy Element Group in 1985 and has been a critical member of the team to discover six new elements — 113 through 118. In addition, he has added more than 40 new isotopes to the chart of nuclides. Trained under Glenn Seaborg, Moody has dedicated his career to the scientific advancement of radio- and nuclear chemistry for the scientific and programmatic communities. In addition, Moody is one of the creators of the discipline of nuclear forensics, and applications of radiochemistry to national security and law enforcement problems.

Bruce Remington

Bruce Remington joined the Lab as a physics postdoc in 1986 and two years later he joined the laser program (now NIF) and has been there ever since. His achievements span three major areas of high-energy-density physics. He performed seminal experiments in inertial confinement fusion; led the creation and development of the High Energy Density Laboratory Astrophysics (HEDLA) project through scientific achievements and the mobilization of an international community; and pioneered the use of lasers to achieve ultrahigh pressure, ultrahigh-strain-rate (deformation) conditions in solid materials, also known as material dynamics at extreme pressure and strain rate.

Dmitri Ryutov

Dmitri Ryutov officially joined the Lab in 1994 but has closely collaborated with Lab physicists since the 1980s. He is recognized nationally and internationally for his contributions to fusion science and plasma physics research. During his decades-long research career in the United States and the former Soviet Union, he has made seminal contributions to magnetically confined fusion, space and astrophysical plasmas, and other applications of plasma physics and general physics. Ryutov's broad knowledge of general physics, combined with his talent for doing analytic calculations that are both relevant to and important for a given subject, has allowed him to identify and solve important problems in areas well outside of plasma physics.

Tom Slezak

Tom Slezak came to LLNL as a summer student in 1974, working part-time during the school year and full time during the summer. He joined the Lab as a full-time computer scientist in 1978, working for what was then called the Bio-Med Program. He eventually went on to work on the Human Genome Project, pioneering the use of what came to be called "bioinformatics" in DNA physical mapping, and was part of the team that built the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek. In 1999, he was tasked to build a pathogen bioinformatics team that went on to build the BASIS system to provide wide-area monitoring for bioterrorism. His team also worked to create the nation's BioWatch system in early 2003.

2011

Left to right: John Lindl, Mordy Rosen, Ben Santer, and Cary Spencer.

John Lindl

John Lindl has more than 38 years of exceptional contributions in plasma physics, high-energy-density physics, and inertial confinement fusion research, as well as significant scientific management experience. John joined the Laboratory in 1972 as a physicist after receiving his bachelor's degree in engineering physics from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Princeton. In 1990, he was selected as program leader of the Nova Laser Program. His integrated model for ignition served as the basis for the Nova Laser program, which was designed to test the key physics issues and to ultimately set the design requirements for the National Ignition Facility.

Mordy Rosen

Rosen's 35-year career at the Laboratory began when he was hired by former director John Nuckolls into X-Division (ICF design) in 1976. Not only did Rosen design the first demonstrated Laboratory soft x-ray laser in 1984, he led X-Division during in the 1990s when the Nova Technical Contract was completed, leading to DOE's final approval of NIF construction. Other achievements include design and analysis of many of the first laser-driven HED physics experiments, key contributions to solving the 50-year-old energy balance problem in nuclear testing, recent important contributions to understanding the very difficult and crucial boost physics problem and many significant theoretical contributions during the past 20 years to understand ICF experimental results at the Nova, Omega, and NIF laser facilities.

Ben Santer

Ben Santer, a world-renowned expert in the climate change research community, joined the Lab in 1992. Ben was named a DMTS in recognition of his history of distinguished scientific achievements, his impact on the scientific community, and "for fearlessly providing objective scientific advice to policy-makers." Ben's research focuses on climate model evaluation, the use of statistical methods in climate science and the identification of natural and anthropogenic "fingerprints" in observed climate records. His work has had major influence on the field of climate-change attribution. He has worked in the Laboratory's Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison for nearly 20 years and is a frequent contributor to Congressional hearings on the science of climate change.

Cary Spencer

Cary Spencer joined the Lab in 1981, when he was hired by then Director George Miller as a nuclear designer. In that capacity, he participated in a number of nuclear weapons programs and was a key designer on six nuclear tests. In 1993, he began working to advance the intelligence community's and the policy community's technical understanding of foreign nuclear weapons systems capabilities and articulating the implication for U.S. national security. He skillfully uses U.S. nuclear weapons codes and data to conduct rigorous, physics-based all-source analysis of foreign nuclear weapons systems. In addition, Spencer's technical expertise across a wide range of topics related to foreign nuclear weapons systems is unparalleled, and he is a widely recognized leader and mentor in the U.S. and United Kingdom national security communities.