The National Research Council (NRC) has posted its list of proposed committee members to conduct "An Assessment of the Fusion Energy Sciences Program." By law, the NRC must allow 20 days for public comment (FPN99-11). Comments can be provided electronically from the posting web page (//www4.nas.edu/cp.nsf/ then click on "Committee Membership Open for Public Comment," then click on "An Assessment of the Fusion Energy Sciences Program").
The proposed Committee is as follows:
Short bios of all are provided on the web page.
The announcement indicates that Socolow and Frosch will serve on a "Steering Group;" that Pellegrini, Gloeckler, Colestock and Siemann will specialize in "Experiment;" that Rosner, Van Dam and Fisch will specialize in Theory and Computation; and that Drake, Prager and Sessler will deal with "Program Architecture."
The NRC is an arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.
The review was requested by DOE Director of Science Martha Krebs, who asked for an "independent assessment of the scientific quality of the (DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences) research programs."
In her request letter Krebs said, "Among the things you may wish to consider in your assessment are the quality of fusion research itself as evidenced by progress in the understanding of fundamental plasma physics issues in fusion energy; the impact that fusion energy research has had in other scientific areas such as astrophysics, geophysics, computational science, and technological areas such as plasma processing; and the role of fusion research in the academic community including graduate student training." Krebs commented, "I anticipate that those who carry out the assessment will have the broad scientific expertise necessary to provide the critical judgment required in such a task and that they will represent a broad segment of the scientific community."