Jul 25 2016
Chandrashekhar Joshi, Distinguished Chancellor’s Professor of Electrical Engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, will receive the 2017 IEEE Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of nuclear and plasma sciences and engineering. The award, named in honor of the famous Nobel laureate in both physics and chemistry, is sponsored by the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society. According to the citation, the award was given to Joshi “for groundbreaking contributions to and leadership in the field of plasma particle accelerators.”
Chandrashekhar Joshi (Credit: Joanne Leung/UCLA)
Joshi is known as the founder of the experimental field of plasma accelerators. At UCLA in the 1980s, he established the first group that proposed to significantly shrink the size and cost of particle accelerators by using charged density waves in plasmas (or ionized gas) using powerful laser pulses or particle beams.
The ultimate goal of Joshi’s research is to provide a paradigm-changing technology for building particle accelerators for fundamental research, as well as for medical and industrial applications.
Joshi was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2014. He has received numerous previous awards for his work, including the American Physical Society’s James Clerk Maxwell Prize and Excellence in Plasma Physics Award, the IEEE’s Particle Accelerator Science and Technology Award, the USPAS Prize for Accelerator Physics and Technology, and the AAC Prize for Advanced Accelerator Concepts. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, IEEE and the Institute of Physics.