Scientific Committee

International Scientific Advisory Committee (ISAC)

The selection of the academic experiments after each Call is a peer review process by the International Scientific Advisory Committee. The Committee is in charge of assessing the quality of the proposals for the academic experiments on LMJ-PETAL.
The members of the committee are specialists recognized internationally for their competences in the various fields of physics encountered in the experiments on LMJ-PETAL. This includes physicists of plasmas, hot and condensed matter, laboratory astrophysics or laser experimentation, nuclear physics, etc…

Stefano Atzeni (Italy)
Professor at University La Sapienza, Roma
Member of the European Academy of Science
Fellow of the American Physical Society (since 2010)
Recipient of the American Nuclear Society Edward Teller Medal (2001)
Editorial Board Member of Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
Chair of the International Scientific Advisory Committee of LMJ-PETAL
Professor Atzeni is highly recognized for his contribution to Inertial Confinement Fusion. He developed a general theory of ignition of inertial fusion targets and a comprehensive gain model which remain a standard.
He also worked on fast ignition process and shock ignition and related topics such as shock waves, equation of state of dense matter.
He contributed to the National Ignition Campaign on NIF in 2011.
Colin Danson (UK)
Distinguished Scientist at AWE
Fellow of the Institute of Physics
Visiting Academic at University of Oxford and Imperial College London
AWE coordinator University of Oxford OxCHEDS (Oxford Centre for High Energy Density Science)
Colin Danson acted as Senior Project Manager to commission the Orion laser facility and spent much of his career working on VULCAN within the Central Laser Facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.
Co-Chief Editor of the international journal High Power Laser Science and Engineering.
In his current role he acts as Head of Profession for Physics & Mathematics and Physics Outreach & Orion Academic Access Manager.
Siegfried Glenzer (USA)
Professor of Photon science, Stanford University.
Director of the High-Energy-Density division at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
He joined SLAC as a distinguished scientist in 2013 to build a new discovery-class program in exploring matter in extreme conditions using high-power lasers and the world-class Linac Coherent Light Source x-ray beam.
He received many awards among them :
• E. O. Lawrence Award, US Department of Energy (2014)
• Humboldt Senior Research Prize, Alexander from Humboldt foundation (2004)
• Excellence in Plasma Physics Award, American Physical Society (2003)
• Fellow of the American Physical Society (2001)
He is also a member of several Advisory Committees and International Boards :
• Member, Advisory Committee of MIT’s Center of Excellence HEDP Science (2018 – Present)
• Member, NIF Discovery Science Technical Review Committee (2016 – Present)
• Member, Inertial Confinement Fusion Ignition & High Yield Program Red Team (ICF Red Team) (2017 – Present)
José Javier Honrubia (Spain)
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 2_s.jpgFull Professor, Head of the Department of Applied Physics, Polytechnic University of Madrid, SpainMember of the Board of the Plasma Physics Division of the European Physical Society (2008-2016).Member of the Board of the Beam Plasma and Inertial Fusion Physics Section of the Plasma Physics Division of the European Physical Society (2001-2008).Prof Honrubia works cover Inertial fusion Energy, hydrodynamics, particles transport in fast and shockignition fusion targets.His international experience includes having been visiting scientist at Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik and Los Alamos National Laboratory and Guest Professor at ILE, Osaka University.
Stefan Hüller (France)
Senior Scientist (“Directeur de Recherche”) CNRS, at CPHT, Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau
Coordinator of Research Group “LEPICE” (Energetic and intense lasers and plasmas under extreme conditions)
Chair of the LULI (CNRS-Ecole Polytechnique) Program Committee
Member of the International Program Advisory Committee of the French Apollon Research Infrastructure.
Stefan Huller is a leading specialist in laser matter interaction in the context of laser fusion.
His work is concentrated on the modelling of the interaction of laser beams with expanding plasmas taking into account parametric instabilities, such as self-focusing/filamentation and the stimulated Brillouin and Raman scattering instabilities.
Ryosuke Kodama (Japan)
Director of ILE, Osaka University, Japan
Member of the American physical society,
Member of the Japan Society of Plasma Science and Nuclear Fusion Research
Member of the Japan Society of Applied Physics
Professor Kodama is a highly recognized specialist in plasma physics, high energy density science and laser applications. His fields of research cover high energy density science, laser nuclear science, high power laser application, plasma photonics, laser fusion …
He has received many awards :
• The LSJ award for distinguished achievements in research, The Laser Society of Japan, 2011
• The American Physical Society Fellow, 2008
• Nuclear Fusion prize, International Atomic Energy Agency, 2008
• Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research, American Physical Society, 2006
• Excellence in Fusion Engineering, Fusion Power Associates, 2002
Karl Krushelnick (USA)
Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences – University of Michigan
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science – University of Michigan
Professor of Physics – University of Michigan
Director of the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science (CUOS) – University of Michigan
Fellow of the American Physical Society
Fellow of the Institute of Physics
Fellow of the Optical Society of America
His field of research covers high intensity/short pulse laser system development, nonlinear optics, nuclear fusion, laser plasma interactions, “table-top” particle accelerators using lasers, high field physics, x-ray laser development and applications.
He has received many awards, among them:
• G. J. Huebner Research Excellence Award, University of Michigan College of Engineering, 2013.
• Outstanding Faculty Award, Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of Michigan, 2010.
• Professor Mitsuyuki Abe Visiting Chair, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Kyoto Japan, 2008-2011.
• Charles V. Boys medal and prize for experimental physics – UK Institute of Physics, 2006.
Tammy Ma(USA)
Advanced Photon Technologies Program Lead for High-Intensity Laser HED Science, NIF, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).
Associate Program Leader for High Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas, LLNL.
Dr. Tammy Ma has previously led many inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments on the NIF, served as the X-Ray Analysis Group Lead at the NIF, and chaired the Lab-Wide Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program. She currently sits on the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC), providing advice to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science on complex scientific and technical issues related to fusion energy and plasma research.
She has received many awards, among them:
• Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering (PECASE), 2016
• Thomas H. Stix Award for Outstanding Early Career Contributions to Plasma Research from the American Physical Society, 2016
• DOE Early Career Research Award, 2018
• 2019 Woman of the Year for California 16th Assembly District
• Young Scientist of the World Economic Forum
Kunioki Mima (Japan)
Professor Emeritus/Guest Professor, Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University
Guest Scientists, Tsuruga Comprehensive Research and Development Center, JAEA
Professor Mima is a plasma physicist. He is very well known for his contributions to the theory of turbulent transport in plasmas, and in particular for the derivation of the Hasegawa–Mima equation in 1977, which won him the 2011 Hannes Alfvén Prize.
He has received many awards, among them:
• Fellows of the American Physical Society 1993
• Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research, American Physical Society, USA
• Osaka Science Award,
• Science and Technology Award, Minister of Education, Sport, Science and Technology, Japan
Robert Mochkovitch (France)
Astrophysicist at Paris Astrophysical Institute (IAP),
Research director at CNRS.
He studies the most violent stellar explosions, supernovae and gamma-ray bursts. One of his recent publication convers the acceleration of cosmic rays at gamma ray burst internal shocks.
In addition to his scientific publications, he is especially recognized for his popularization work in the field of astrophysics, and that of the adventures of Tintin.
Sakura Pascarelli (Germany)
Scientific Director at the European XFEL,
Responsible for the development of the scientific program on the four hard X-ray instruments.
Sakura Pascarelli received a Laurea in Physics at the University La Sapienza (Rome, Italy) and a PhD degree in Physics at the University Joseph Fourier (Grenoble, France). After joining the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF, Grenoble, France) in 1993, her scientific career evolved around the development of methods to probe the local and electronic structure of condensed matter by synchrotron X-rays.
In the past twenty years, her main scientific interest was the investigation of matter at extreme conditions of pressure, temperature and magnetic fields using principally X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy and X-ray Magnetic Linear and Circular Dichroism. She was in charge of the x-ray absorption spectroscopy beamlines ID24 (1997-2019) and BM23 (2000-2019), Head of the Electronic Structure and Magnetism Group (2012-2015) and Head of the Matter at Extremes Group (2015-2019).
In September 2019 she joined the European XFEL (Hamburg, Germany) as Scientific Director responsible for the development of the scientific program on the four short-waved hard X-ray instruments.
Nicolae Victor Zamfir (Roumania)
President of the Physics Section of the Romanian Academy
Chairman of the Consultative Council of the National Research Authority
Member of the Romanian Physical Society and American Physical Society
Professor Zamfir is a distinguished international scientist in Nuclear Physics, author of more than 500 articles, papers and conference contributions with a total of more than 6,500 citations.
As Director of National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering Horia Hulubel (IFIN-HH), he was the main initiator of the ELI-NP project, an achievement for which he received several prizes, among which the title of Grand Officer of the French Order of the Legion of Honor.
Prof. Zamfir has over 40 years of research experience in many famous universities and institutes, among which IFIN-HH, Köln University (Germany), Brookhaven National Laboratory (USA), Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory at Yale University (USA).