Richard E. Siemon

Richard E. Siemon received the Ph.D. degree from the University of California, San Diego, in 1968. After his Ph.D. studies, he was with Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he worked for 34 years in the Los Alamos fusion program. Starting with experimental plasma physics research under Ralph Lovberg at the University of California, San Diego, he has worked on the problems of fusion energy throughout his career. Mostly, he has worked on pulsed high-density plasma systems, such as theta- and Z-pinches. His early research specialized in plasma diagnostics, including holographic interferometry and innovations for Thomson scattering. He progressed from Staff Member to various management positions, including 12 years as Los Alamos Fusion Energy Program Manager. A Fellow of the American Physical Society, he led the world's most extensive project to study a high-density compact toroid system called the field-reversed configuration. That configuration is currently considered one of the leading candidates for liner-driven plasma compression in the fusion approach known as magnetoinertial fusion (MIF). He has served on the Department of Energy's Magnetic Fusion Energy Advisory Committee and the Board of Directors for Fusion Power Associates. His interest in MIF has led to investigations of high-energy-density physics at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), where he began doing research as a Professor in 2002. At UNR, he has been involved in studies of the diffuse Z-pinch, the other leading plasma configuration for MIF. He has also been the Principal Investigator for recent UNR experiments to study the generation of megagauss magnetic fields and the interaction between such high fields and metal surfaces. He is particularly enthused about the MIF concept because it has potential for a number of applications and appears to offer a more affordable and practical fusion system than either tokamaks or conventional laser fusion systems.