Cary Forest is professor at the Department of Physics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and director of the Wisconsin Plasma Physics Laboratory. He is also co-founder, CSO and acting CTO of Realta Fusion Incorporation.
Tammy Ma is the Lead for the Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) Institutional Initiative at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the U.S. She was a member of the team achieving burning plasma, followed by fusion ignition in December 2022 at the National Ignition Facility, demonstrating more energy gain from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it. She is the recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering (PECASE) and currently sits on the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC). She also chaired the 2022 DOE Basic Research Needs Workshop and Report in Inertial Fusion Energy and served on the German Expert Panel that authored the Memorandum on Laser Inertial Fusion Energy.
Tilmann Lunt is a research scientist in the Plasma Edge and Wall Department (E2M) at IPP Garching. His scientific interests include alternative divertor configurations and the physics of the plasma edge, in particular the effects of 3D magnetic field perturbations. He is also responsible for the visual and near-infrared camera systems of the ASDEX Upgrade experiment.
Hans-Walter Rix is director at the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) and professor at the University of Heidelberg faculty for physics and astronomy. In his thesis work with Simon White he figured out that most large elliptical galaxies also have sizable stellar disks, and hence must have a different formation history than thought at the time. He also had the opportunity to work with Craig Hogan on gravitational lensing, with Marcia and George Rieke on infrared imaging and spectroscopy, and with Rob Kennicutt. He then went on to the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, working on some of the very first Hubble Space Telescope data on gravitational lensing and giving in to the numerous, exciting scientific diversions that Princeton has to offer. After a year at MPA, Garching and three years on the faculty at the University of Arizona, he came to MPIA late 1998. In the first five years, his focus was on galaxy evolution, helping to draw up a comprehensive picture of what the population of galaxies looked like when the Universe was half its age. In recent years he has focused his research on our very own galaxy, the Milky Way, because the intricate detail in which it can be studied, should lead us to a better understanding of galaxy formation as a whole. As of 2016, the Gaia space mission along with other vast spectroscopic surveys of stars, and then Hubble's successor James Webb Space Telescope are the next beacons on his science path.
Karl Lackner is Emeritus Scientific Member of the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasma Physics. For biographical details see https://www.ipp.mpg.de/1084867/lackner
Ambrogio Fasoli is Programme Manager (CEO) of the European Consortium for Fusion Energy, EUROfusion, Director of the Swiss Plasma Centre at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Delegate to the Provost of the EPFL. Ambrogio Fasoli, an honorary member of the American Physical Society, studied at the University of Milan and obtained his doctorate at the EPFL. After conducting experiments on the European JET tokamak in the United Kingdom, he became a professor at MIT in the United States, where he worked from 1997 to 2001, before being appointed professor at EPFL. From 2014 to 2020, he was editor-in-chief of the journal Nuclear Fusion of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
