Hantao Ji of Plainsboro and Stan Kaye of West Windsor were honored by Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory during a ceremony on Friday, March 20. Ji, a physicist, received the PPPL Distinguished Research Fellow award; and Kaye, a physicist, received the Kaul Prize for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research and Technology Development.##M:[more]##
Ji was honored for his pioneering research in magnetic reconnection in plasmas and for his leadership in exploring the magnetorotational instability. Magnetic reconnection is the breaking and topological rearrangement of magnetic field lines in a plasma.
Ji received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Ehime University in Japan in 1985 and a doctor of science degree in physics from the University of Tokyo in 1990.
“Hantao Ji’s research has penetrated the mysteries of magnetic reconnection: the process that underlies magnetic field behavior from solar flares to fusion plasmas,” said PPPL Director Stewart Prager.
Kaye is the deputy program director of the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX), chair of the Transport and Confinement International Tokamak Physics Activity, and deputy chair of the U.S. Transport Task Force. He was honored for his investigations of electron and ion energy transport, and for facilitating the analysis of a particular type of turbulence, in NSTX, a fusion energy experiment at PPPL.
Kaye received a bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from Hamilton College in 1974 and a Ph.D. in space plasma physics from UCLA in 1979. He joined the research staff at PPPL in 1980.
“Stan has led analysis of experimental data that uncovered key features of the some of the major puzzles of how turbulence causes plasma energy to escape across the magnetic cage,” said Prager.
