- BS Electrical Engineering 1960
Following graduation Tom Simonen went on to receive a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University. After appointments at Hughes Aircraft, Max Planck Institute in Munich, and Princeton University, he joined the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for 18 years as a physicist and became program leader for magnetic fusion experiments. For the past 12 years he has been Director of the DIII-D National Fusion Program, the U.S. Department of Energy’s largest fusion facility with over 50 collaborating laboratories and universities. Dr. Simonen has published extensively in the field nuclear fusion energy, served on numerous national and international physics committees, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.