Don Batchelor Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Donald B. Batchelor is the principal investigator for the center for Simulation of Wave Interaction with MHD (SWIM), a project in the DOE Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computation (SciDAC) program. The goals of SWIM are to improve the understanding of the interactions between high-power electromagnetic waves and MHD stability in fusion systems and to develop a simulation capability that can serve as a prototype for a complete fusion simulation. Batchelor has been at ORNL since receiving his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Maryland in 1976, and has more than 70 refereed publications. For most of his career his primary research interest has been the theory and computation of plasma waves and their applications in fusion. Before developing the SWIM project Batchelor was the principal investigator on the DOE SciDAC project on wave-plasma interactions. Other research interests include the development of innovative plasma confinement systems such as compact stellarator systems. He was the Plasma Theory Group Leader at Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1995 until 2006. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society.