FPN17-32
Management Changes at DOE Fusion Office
August 13, 2017
Following the departure of Ed Synakowski (see FPN17-31),
on August 6, 2017 James (“Jim”) Van Dam assumed responsibility as acting
associate director for the Office of Fusion Energy Science (OFES) in the
DOE Office of Science. Jim received his Ph.D. in plasma physics from
UCLA in 1979. Dr. Van Dam was a visiting member of the Institute for
Advanced Studies (Princeton) and then moved to The University of Texas
at Austin when the Institute for Fusion Studies (IFS) was established in
1980. He became Associate Director of the IFS in 1986 and served as
Director 2003-2011. He was also Director of the U.S. Burning Plasma
Organization and Chief Scientist for the U.S. ITER Project Office
2007-2011. His research areas include kinetic theory, MHD, plasma waves,
equilibrium and stability in toroidal confinement fusion devices,
energetic particles in burning plasmas, and magnetospheric physics. He
has published over 100 papers, plus two books. He is a Fellow of the
American Physical Society since 1992. Jim can be reached at
james.vandam@science.doe.gov
Also effective August 6, 2017, John Mandrekas assumes responsibility as
acting division director for the OFES Research Division. John joined
the Research Division in OFES in January 2007 following a two-year
Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) assignment within the Department,
as Program Manager for the OFES Theory and Simulation program.
Previously, he was a Senior Research Scientist at the Georgia Institute
of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, where he did research in theoretical
and computational fusion plasma science and taught undergraduate and
graduate level courses in plasma physics and fusion. He received a Ph.D.
in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. John can be reached at john.mandrekas@science.doe.gov