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Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion: 2016 Reviewer Awards

Reviewer of the Year: Professor William Heidbrink, University of California Irvine, United States

Professor of Physics at the University of California Irvine, USA, William Heidbrink studies high-energy, fast ions in magnetic fusion experiments. He is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society and, in 2004, received the Excellence in Plasma Physics Research award from the American Physical Society.

A referee for a number of journals, Professor Heidbrink was pleasantly surprised to have been selected for Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion’s Reviewer of the Year award. As a reviewer, he lends his expertise in experimental plasma physics, seeing it as a necessary service to his research community. The reward for undertaking this service is the feeling that he has helped authors to notably improve their paper.

When reviewing a manuscript, Professor Heidbrink will check that the research is technically sound and that it contributes significantly to the field—basic journal criteria, he says. One paper he recently enjoyed reading discussed recent upgrades to the FIDA (fast-ion D-alpha) diagnostic at ASDEX Upgrade, the Axially Symmetric Divertor Experiment in Garching, Germany: Enhancement of the FIDA diagnostic at ASDEX Upgrade for velocity space tomography.

Overall, Professor Heidbrink feels that the current peer review process works well; although, he does wonder whether it would be enhanced if the reviews were not anonymous. His brief but sound advice to those who are taking on the task of refereeing for the first time is to consult a mentor.

Outstanding Reviewers:

  • Professor Allen Boozer, Columbia University, United States
  • Dr Alex Chankin, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik, Germany
  • Dr Jonathan Citrin, DIFFER – Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research, Netherlands
  • Professor Xiang Gao, Chinese Academy of Sciences – Hefei Institutes of Physical Sciences, China
  • Dr Per Helander, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik, Germany
  • Dr Vladimir Ivanov, University of Nevada, United States
  • Dr Olivier Izacard, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, United States
  • Dr Wei Jiang, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
  • Dr Stanley Kaye, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, United States
  • Professor Alexander Kudrin, Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod, Russia
  • Dr G Lesnyakov, National Science Center ‘Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology’, Ukraine
  • Dr Victor Marchenko, Ukraine National Academy of Sciences – Kiev Institute for Nuclear Research, Ukraine
  • Dr Ken McClements, Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, UK
  • Dr Carlos Paz-Soldan, General Atomics, United States
  • Dr S Pestchanyi, Karlsruher Institut fur Technologie, Germany
  • Professor Antonio Roberto Piriz, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
  • Dr Joel Rosato, Universite d’Aix – Marseille, France
  • Professor Vladimir Rozhansky, St Petersburg State Polytechnic University, Russia
  • Dr Alexander Saveliev, Russian Academy of Sciences – Ioffe Physical Technical Institute, Russia
  • Dr Matthias Schnuerer, Max-Born-Institut fuer Nichtlineare Optik und Kurzzeitspektroskopie, Germany
  • Dr George Sips, European Commission, UK
  • Dr Wolfgang Suttrop, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik, Germany
  • Dr Tomonori Takizuka, Osaka University, Japan
  • Dr Dezhen Wang, Dalian University of Technology, China