Valeria Riccardo, PPPL’s new Head of Engineering, is a transplant from the United Kingdom. She comes to the position with more than 20 years of experience in technical management, design, and analysis on two fusion devices in the United Kingdom, together with an educational background in engineering. She holds a master’s degree in nuclear engineering and a doctorate in energetics from Politecnico di Torino in her native Italy, and a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the Imperial College in London.

For the last five years, Riccardo was chief engineer for the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, England, the United Kingdom’s national laboratory for fusion research. The center operates the Joint European Torus (JET) and the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST), similar to PPPL’s National Spherical Torus Experiment Upgrade (NSTX-U). JET shut down operations last November to prepare for fusion experiments using tritium. MAST is undergoing a major upgrade and is expected to restart operation this year as MAST-U.

Riccardo welcomes the opportunity to work directly with the PPPL engineering staff. She came to PPPL, she said, because she was looking for a new challenge and wanted to continue her work in developing fusion energy. “I wanted something different and PPPL is a respected fusion research center,” Riccardo said. “I’m still a believer in fusion energy. I would like to contribute to getting a sustainable energy source, so I gave fusion another chance in another place!”