Biography:Louise Willingale

From HandWiki
Short description: Laser physicist
Louise Willingale
Alma materImperial College London
Scientific career
FieldsLaser physics, plasma physics
InstitutionsUniversity of Michigan
ThesisIon acceleration from high intensity laser plasma interactions: Measurements and applications (2007)
Doctoral advisorKarl Krushelnick, Zulfikar Najmudin
Websitewillingale.engin.umich.edu

Louise Willingale is a laser physicist at the University of Michigan and associate director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) ZEUS facility.

Education

Willingale completed her undergraduate Physics degree (MSci) from Imperial College London in 2003 and stayed on to complete her PhD in 2007 with her thesis titled Ion acceleration from high intensity laser plasma interactions: Measurements and applications.[1] She was then a research assistant before moving to the University of Michigan to carry out postdoc studies.[2]

Career

Willingale is interested in experiments and numerical modeling of high intensity laser plasma interactions and laser-driven ion acceleration. She has made use of advancements in laser technology, mainly chirped pulse amplification which was developed by Gérard Mourou who shared the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics.[3]

Willingale has been successful at winning a range of funding as principal investigator and is a member of the Institute of Physics, American Physical Society, and IEEE.[2]

In 2016–17 Willingale was a senior lecturer at Lancaster University, before returning to the University of Michigan.[2][4]

As of 2022, she is Associate Professor at the University of Michigan in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and associate director and co-principal investigator of the NSF Zetawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System (ZEUS) facility,[5] which will be the highest peak power laser in the US and one of the most powerful in the world. ZEUS is designed to have a maximum peak power of 3 petawatts but can simulate much higher powers by firing it at a high-energy electron beam travelling in the opposite direction.[6][7][8][9][10] In 2022 she also became a Fellow of the American Physical Society.[11]

Awards and honours

  • 2008 – Institute of Physics Culham Thesis Prize[12]
  • 2008 – European Physical Society Plasma Physics Division PhD Research Award[13]
  • 2018 – National Science Foundation CAREER award[14][15]
  • 2022 – Fellow of the American Physical Society for "significant contributions to the experimental understanding of ion acceleration, electron acceleration and magnetic field dynamics resulting from relativistic laser plasma interactions."[16][11]
  • 2022 – National Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellow[17]
  • 2023 – University of Michigan EECS Outstanding Achievement Award[18]

Selected publications

References

  1. Willingale, Louise (Aug 2007). Ion Acceleration from High Intensity Laser Plasma Interactions: Measurements and Applications (PDF) (Thesis). Imperial College London. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 8 April 2023.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Louise Willingale Curriculum Vitae". https://willingale.engin.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/380/2022/10/Willingale_CurriculumVitae.pdf. 
  3. Hayley Hanway (26 June 2019). "Prof. Louise Willingale creates extreme plasma conditions using high-intensity laser pulses". https://optics.engin.umich.edu/stories/prof-louise-willingale-creates-extreme-plasma-conditions-using-high-intensity-laser-pulses/. 
  4. "Louise Willingale – Research Portal | Lancaster University". https://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/people/louise-willingale(1a42ed31-68e6-496f-9830-4343851ed484).html. 
  5. "Investigators | ZEUS". University of Michigan. https://zeus.engin.umich.edu/contact/people/investigators//. 
  6. Nick Lavars (15 September 2022). "Scientists fire up the most powerful laser in the US". https://newatlas.com/science/most-powerful-laser-us-zeus/. 
  7. "Univ. of Michigan's ZEUS will be most powerful laser in US". 14 September 2022. https://news.yahoo.com/univ-michigan-zeus-most-powerful-180725046.html. 
  8. "Most powerful laser in the US to begin operations soon, supported by $18.5M from the NSF". 12 August 2021. https://news.umich.edu/most-powerful-laser-in-the-us-to-begin-operations-soon-supported-by-18-5m-from-the-nsf/. 
  9. Catharine June (23 August 2022). "ZEUS Joins International Community of Extreme Light Virtuosos". https://ece.engin.umich.edu/stories/zeus-joins-international-community-of-extreme-light-virtuosos/. 
  10. "First light at the most powerful laser in the US". 14 September 2022. https://news.umich.edu/first-light-at-the-most-powerful-laser-in-the-us/. 
  11. 11.0 11.1 "Louise Willingale elected Fellow of APS". Michigan AI Lab. 19 October 2022. https://ai.engin.umich.edu/stories/louise-willingale-elected-fellow-of-aps/. 
  12. "IOP-Culham Thesis Prize | Imperial News | Imperial College London". 26 February 2008. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/29174/iop-culham-thesis-prize/. 
  13. "PhD Research Award". European Physical Society – Plasma Physics Division. http://plasma.ciemat.es/eps/awards/phd-research-award/. 
  14. Catharine June (12 March 2018). "Louise Willingale advancing scientific knowledge of plasmas". https://ece.engin.umich.edu/stories/louise-willingale-advancing-scientific-knowledge-of-plasmas/. 
  15. "NSF Award Search: Award # 1751462 – CAREER: Relativistic Electron Driven Magnetic Reconnection". https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1751462&HistoricalAwards=false. 
  16. "APS Fellow Archive". http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/archive-all.cfm. 
  17. Hayley Hanway (13 April 2022). "Louise Willingale named Kavli Fellow by the National Academy of Sciences". University of Michigan. https://ece.engin.umich.edu/stories/louise-willingale-named-kavli-fellow-by-the-national-academy-of-sciences/. 
  18. "2023 EECS Outstanding Achievement Awards". University of Michigan. 27 March 2023. https://radlab.engin.umich.edu/stories/2023-eecs-outstanding-achievement-awards/. 

External links