PPPL has received a grant from the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development for its innovative apprenticeship program. The plan offers on-the-job training and classes at Mercer County Technical Schools for early career mechanics, machinists, electricians, information technology technicians and other technical professionals.

The four-year PPPL apprenticeship is the first to be registered in fusion energy and engineering in the United States. The program equips early career technicians with the skills to help build and operate a fusion energy experiment.

The program partners with the U.S. Department of Labor and the New Jersey Department of Labor’s apprenticeship offices. The $27,000 grant comes from the Growing Apprenticeship in Nontraditional Sectors (GAINS), part of Gov. Phil Murphy’s expansion of apprenticeships in nontraditional, high-tech industries such as fusion.

“I am delighted that PPPL’s apprenticeship program is thriving,” said Steve Cowley, PPPL’s director. “We need a new generation of skilled technicians to provide the much-needed support to bring fusion energy to the grid.”

The program is expanding from four to 10 apprentices under the leadership of program manager Diana Adel. “I appreciate the support from all the mentors and trainers that provide daily mentoring and on-the-job training to our growing number of apprentices,” Adel said. “The program’s success is possible due to the Lab-wide support and dedication to the apprentices.”

PPPL and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have signed a partnership agreement in Vienna to strengthen education, training and outreach programs in nuclear fusion research all over the world. The goal is to help train the next generation of scientists to develop fusion energy as a clean, green and plentiful source of electricity, said Steve Cowley, PPPL director, who signed the agreement with Mikhail Chudakov, IAEA deputy director general and head of the Department of Nuclear Energy.

Co-sponsoring the event were the IAEA, which is based in Vienna, and the DOE. The 175-member IAEA is the world organization for intergovernmental cooperation in the nuclear field.

“I think this agreement with the IAEA is really an interesting step forward,” Cowley said. “They’re looking for the Lab to provide leadership in helping other countries develop fusion programs.” 

Attending the signing were Laura Holgate, U.S. ambassador to the IAEA and the Vienna Office of the United Nations, and Najat Mokhtar, deputy director general of the IAEA and head of the Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications.

“We are witnesses to rapid changes in the fusion research landscape,” said Chudakov. “The IAEA looks forward to a successful partnership with PPPL and to great results of our joint work.”

Spearheading the partnership were Arturo Dominguez, head of PPPL’s Science Education office, and Matteo Barbarino, a nuclear plasma fusion specialist in the Physics Section of the Division of Physical and Chemical Sciences at the IAEA Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications. Both attended the signing, as did Andrew Zwicker, long-time head of Science Education and now head of the PPPL Strategic Relations Department.

“This really expands on the international mission that we already have,” Dominguez said. “This is just another way of strengthening those existing collaborations and opening more doors and creating more points of access to the work that we’re doing.” 

Added Barbarino, “There’s a lot of excitement and interest right now in fusion and the importance of workforce development is coming into focus. We all realize for fusion to be successful, we’re going to need trainers and well-educated fusion scientists and engineers, so this partnership will help achieve that.”

PPPL’s 2022 Young Women’s Conference in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) was a national bicoastal virtual event. Young women on both coasts enjoyed the opportunity to get career advice from early career female scientists, visit science research booths run by PPPL and other institutions, and hear a keynote speech by a plasma physicist.

The conference brought together some 300 seventh grade to tenth grade students for the 21st such event sponsored by PPPL. The event took place in a virtual area designed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) that featured an auditorium, a lobby and exhibit hall with virtual booths.

“It was great having the event on the West Coast,” said Deedee Ortiz, Science Education program manager at PPPL, who organized the conference. “I was very happy we could offer the event to young women virtually this year.”

The conference included two career panels. In the first, students and East Coast researchers discussed the importance of persistence in pursuing science careers. “To be a scientist, you need to have persistence, and you need to be clear about what you want but also be flexible,” said Liz Hernandez-Matias, a senior educational specialist at CienciaPR, a nonprofit organization committed to the advancement of science.

The second panel featured plasma physicists. Cami Collins, a physicist and group leader in the Fusion Energy Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said she has been interested in fusion energy since the fifth grade when she first learned how fusion energy could help contribute to combating global warming. “Knowing that you’re contributing to society – I think about that every day,” she said. “It’s a big factor in my life.”

In her keynote speech, Eva Kostadinova, an assistant professor at Auburn University’s Department of Physics, discussed her career journey to become a plasma physicist. “You don’t have to be a certain type to become a scientist,” she said. “The only thing that’s important for science is interest. If something interests you, and you’re willing to work for that, it will work out.”

She concluded with a quote from physicist Richard Feynman, who said, “I was an ordinary person who studied hard. There are no miracle people. It happens they get interested in this thing and they learn all this stuff, but they’re just people.”

Middle and high school science teachers from schools across the United States learned how to incorporate plasma physics into their curriculum at the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Plasma Physics’ Science Teacher Day. Featured prominently in the virtual daylong event were members of the PPPL Science Education Department.

Participants in the program learned how to incorporate hands-on plasma physics demonstrations to make plasma physics come alive in the Next Generation Science Standards curriculum. Teachers practiced the demonstrations themselves with kits that included a plasma ball, a fluorescent bulb, magnets and other materials contributed by PPPL.

“It was super great,” said Arturo Dominguez, head of Science Education. “It was the first time the workshop was opened up nationwide, and we’re hoping this will be a model for future remote workshops.”

Among the presenters was Shannon Swilley Greco, Science Education senior program leader. “The three cool things about plasma,” she said, are “they conduct electricity, they give off light and you can move them with magnets.” She showed how a plasma ball can light up a fluorescent bulb that also contains a plasma, and teachers tried the demonstration themselves using materials that PPPL mailed them.

Swilley Greco’s class won kudos from the teachers. Participants were equally positive about other classes. “I’ve had a hard time explaining plasma to students in the past,” said a teacher. “But I feel I’m much better equipped now, and the students would be excited to see plasma generated!”