The award recognizes Grisham "for his distinguished contributions to the understanding and improvement of the first generation of high-power negative-ion-based neutral beams for fusion applications." In experimental fusion devices, a beam of neutral atoms is fired into hot, ionized fuel called plasma to increase the temperature for the production of fusion power.

PPPL Director Rob Goldston said, "Dr. Grisham is a world leader in the development of high-power atomic beams based on the production of the unusual negatively charged hydrogen ion. This is a critical technology for future fusion power plants. While the major technology development efforts in this area are based abroad, Dr. Grisham has nonetheless earned international recognition for his leadership in this area, resulting - for example - in his being asked to summarize the world program in negative-ion neutral beams at the last international conference on fusion energy. His work was essential for the success of the recent demonstration of efficient negative-ion neutral-beam current drive on the JT-60U tokamak in Japan."

Grisham, a physicist at PPPL since 1974, received a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Texas in 1971 and a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from Oxford University in England in 1974. He has been involved in numerous scientific collaborations in the U.S. and abroad; during the past 15 years he has traveled to Japan 36 times to participate in neutral-beam collaborations. Grisham is a 1971 Rhodes Scholar and Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and is the author or coauthor of about 190 papers. He lives in Lawrence Township.

Princeton University awards the Kaul Prize to recognize a recent outstanding technical achievement in plasma physics or technology development by a full-time, regular employee of PPPL. It includes a cash award of $2,000. Nominations for the award are submitted to the Prize Selection Committee, which includes the Princeton University Provost, the Chair of the Princeton University Research Board, the PPPL Director, PPPL Deputy Director, and PPPL Chief Scientist. This is the fifth time the prize has been given.

Allan Reiman and Douglas McCune, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), are this year's PPPL Distinguished Research and Engineering Fellows, respectively. On November 20, the two were honored during a ceremony and reception at the Laboratory.

Reiman, a physicist at PPPL, was cited for his numerous contributions in diverse topics in plasma physics, including the theory of three-dimensional plasmas found in fusion devices called stellarators, and for his leadership in developing innovative approaches to the stabilization of plasmas in the design of the National Compact Stellarator Experiment.

McCune, Co-head of the Laboratory's Computational Plasma Physics Group, was honored for seminal contributions to computational plasma physics, particularly in the area of high-level data analysis in fusion experiments, and for his more recent work in establishing and leading the PPPL Computational Plasma Physics Group, which has been vital to the development of modern computational physics and collaborative data analysis capability for both PPPL and the Fusion Energy Science Community.

Reiman received a bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard University in 1971, graduating summa cum laude. At Harvard, his academic honors included the Whittaker Prize, Detur Prize, and Knox Fellowship, and he was one of twelve in his class of 1,200 elected to Phi Beta Kappa in the junior year. A National Science Foundation graduate fellow in Princeton University's Physics Department from 1971 to 1973, Reiman received his Ph.D. from that department in 1977. He worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University, and the University of Maryland before joining PPPL's Theory Department in 1981. He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1993. Since 1994, he has been a Lecturer with the rank of Professor in Princeton's Astrophysical Sciences Department. From 1997 to 2000, he was Head of the Plasma Configuration Design Group for the National Compact Stellarator Experiment. He lives in Princeton Junction.

PPPL Director Rob Goldston said, "Allan is the Laboratory's leader in the theory of three-dimensional plasmas, such as in stellarators, which vary in cross section around the torus. He has been one of the leaders of the effort to design the National Compact Stellarator Experiment, which recently had a very successful Physics Validation Review, followed by strong approval from the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee. Allan did a fantastic job pulling this effort together at its inception, and has provided many of the critical analyses which have helped it succeed through many reviews."

McCune graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Yale University in 1978, the same year he began working at PPPL as a computational scientist. He received a master's in computer science from Drexel University in 1995. McCune, a software engineer and applied mathematician by training, has 23 years of experience in computational plasma physics. He is the main author and creator of TRANSP, an integrated software package for tokamak fusion plasma simulations, which has been used to analyze and validate the results on tokamak experiments around the world. He is coauthor of dozens of conference papers and journal articles, primarily in the field of experimental plasma physics and controlled fusion. He is a resident of Princeton Township.

Goldston said, "Doug McCune combines great skill in software engineering with a deep understanding of plasma physics, and the process of experimental research in our field. His data interpretation code, TRANSP, has become the standard for making sense of high-level data from fusion experiments around the world. He has done an outstanding job of maintaining a major code system on multiple platforms, and of providing an avenue for a wide range of U.S. and international collaborators to make additions and improvements."

The Distinguished Research and Engineering Fellow Program, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), was created to recognize members of the Laboratory's research, and engineering and scientific staff for their accomplishments. Fellows receive one-time gifts of $5,000 and qualify for priority in regard to their research and engineering programs.