CER News:
Farhat Beg named 2012 IEEE fellow.

21 November 2011

Farhat Beg, Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department and member of the Center for Energy Research, has been named an IEEE Fellow. He is being recognized for contributions to "high intensity laser matter interactions and pulsed power pinches". The IEEE Grade of Fellow is conferred by the IEEE Board of Directors upon a person with an outstanding record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest. The total number selected in any one year cannot exceed one-tenth of one percent of the total voting membership. IEEE Fellow is the highest grade of membership and is recognized by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement. Prof. Beg has made outstanding contributions to a number of High Energy Density Physics sub-fields. This has led him to become one of the highly cited authors in this field. His publications have been cited more than 3800 times. His research interests include short pulse high intensity laser matter interactions, fast ignition inertial confinement fusion (ICF), wire array z-pinches and neutron and x-ray sources. Presently, he is leading the most active research group, who has conducted experiments on a large number of high intensity short pulse laser including OMEGA EP at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, the LFEX at the Osaka University, Japan, Vulcan Laser at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory UK, the Jupiter Laser Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Trident Laser at the Los Alamos National Laboratory among others. Prof. Beg received his Ph.D. in Plasma Physics from Imperial College London in 1995. He worked as a Research Associate and then as a Research Fellow at Imperial College, before joining the faculty at University of California San Diego in 2003. Currently, he is a Professor of Engineering Physics at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Professor Beg has been the recipient of the IEEE Early Achievement Award in 2008 and was elected the fellow of the American Physical Society in 2009. He was elected a senior member of the IEEE in 2009. Prof. Beg has published extensively over 120 articles in high quality journals including Nature, Nature Physics, Phys. Rev. Lett. etc. Prof. Beg's service to the plasma community has been exemplary. He has served as a session organizer and technical area organizer to several IEEE International Conferences on Plasma Science (ICOPS). He was the General Chair of a very successful IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science held in San Diego in 2009. He serves as the Chair, ICOPS budget sub-committee of the Executive Committee of Plasma Science and Applications Committee. He has served as a Guest Editor to the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science special Issue in April 2009. Recently, he was elected to serve on the Executive Committee of the IEEE Plasma Science and Applications Committee. He has been a panel member on the Department of Energy Fusion Energy Science Advisory Committee on High Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas. He also served on a subsequent panel on Research Needs Workshop for High Energy Density Laboratory Physics, as an expert on relativistic intense beams. He has served as a Chair of the High Energy Density Science Association (HEDSA) in 2009/10. The HEDSA is an association of scientists from academia that promote High Energy Density Laboratory Plasma in universities and small businesses, as well as in national laboratories.