Vol. 12, No. 2 • SPRING 2008

Continued on page 2

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock (right) congratulates PPPL Director 

Rob Goldston on PPPL being designated as an ENERGY STAR® partner during PPPL’s Earth Day celebration. 

Becoming an ENERGY STAR® Partner

Earth Week Marks PPPL Designation

Energy efficiency matters! That was the Earth Day message demonstrated April 22 at PPPL, as it was welcomed as an 

ENERGY STAR® partner by the DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). DOE and EPA officials made 

the announcement during a special Earth Day celebration at 

PPPL in the Auditorium. ENERGY STAR® partners are facilities that take action to improve energy efficiency, protect 

the environment and reduce greenhouse gases.

“Princeton’s designation as the first Department of Energy 

facility to become an ENERGY STAR® partner highlights 

the Laboratory’s commitment to reducing it’s footprint on the 

environment through increased energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions while conducting cutting edge 

research,” said DOE Under Secretary for Science Dr. Raymond 

L. Orbach in a statement. “The Laboratory, as part of an overall 

Department of Energy initiative, is also focusing on increasing 

use of renewable energy, reducing water use and implementing 

sustainable design into its operations. Princeton Plasma Physics 

Laboratory is a model for all Department of Energy facilities.”

EPA Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock recognized 

the Laboratory for its commitment to sound energy management through investments in energy efficient lighting, energy 

management systems, and energy benchmarking in facilities 

and operations.
PPPL NEWS • Spring 2008 Page 2

ENERGY STAR

Continued from page 1

“What better day than Earth Day to recognize a facility 

that is helping EPA achieve our environmental protection goals 

through a promising partnership,” said Peacock. “We are encouraged to see the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, a distinguished 

member of the scientific community, serve as a model to other 

organizations, proving you can conduct outstanding scientific 

research while saving energy and money. PPPL’s pioneering fusion research has the potential to dramatically improve America’s 

energy security while significantly reducing air pollution and 

emissions of greenhouse gases.” Peacock joined DOE Princeton 

Site Office Manager Jerry Faul in announcing the partnership at 

PPPL’s Earth Day celebration.

In partnership with ENERGY STAR®, PPPL will measure 

and track the energy performance of the organization’s facilities 

and operations by using tools offered through the program. PPPL 

will also develop and implement a plan consistent with the ENERGY STAR® energy management strategy to achieve energy 

savings and promote the importance of energy efficiency to its 

staff and community.

In addition to the ENERGY STAR® partnership announcement, PPPL’s Earth Day events included remarks by Faul and 

EPA’s Alan Steinberg, a presentation about the Lab’s energy and 

environmental performance by PPPL Materiel and Environmental 

Services Division Head Rob Sheneman, and the presentation of 

2008 PPPL Green Machine awards to employees who have made 

a special effort to save energy, reduce waste and improve PPPL’s 

environmental performance. 

Faul read a congratulatory letter to staff from DOE Under 

Secretary for Science Orbach, which also noted two awards 

bestowed on PPPL.

PPPL Materiel and Environmental Services Division Head Rob Sheneman gives a presentation about the Lab’s energy and environmental 

performance during Earth Day.

The PPPL NEWS is issued by the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, a research facility supported by the United States Department of Energy 

and managed by Princeton University. Correspondence and requests to reprint material should be directed to: Information Services, Princeton 

Plasma Physics Laboratory, P.O. Box 451, Princeton, NJ 08543; telephone 609-243-2750; fax 609-243-2751; e-mail pppl_info@pppl.gov .

PPPL NEWS

Information Services Head: Anthony R. DeMeo

Editor/Writer: Patti Wieser

Photographer: Elle Starkman

Layout and Graphics: Greg Czechowicz 

At the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment, PPPL physicist 

Hantao Ji (right) discusses the experiment with EPA’s Marcus 

Peacock (next to Ji) and Alan Steinberg. Peacock and Steinberg 

toured PPPL following the Earth Day presentation.

PPPL has received the DOE Office of Science Pollution Prevention (P2) Star Award for “Outstanding Recycling in FY07” 

and a DOE Office of Science Honorable Mention award for the 

Laboratory’s Compressed Natural Gas and B20 Program. 

Said Sheneman, “In celebrating Earth Day we are also celebrating the Laboratory’s success in improving our environmental 

performance. The commitment of PPPL’s staff is reflected in our 

selection for two prestigious pollution prevention awards and 

our partnership with ENERGY STAR®. PPPL is clearly a leader 

among DOE facilities in the area of environmental stewardship 

and sustainability.”

The day also featured environmental and recycling displays 

in the Lobby by the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, the 

Mercer County Improvement Authority, Corporate Express Office 

Supply, and PPPL. The Lab’s exhibits were about its recycling 

program, alternate fuel vehicles program, environmentally preferred purchases, water conservation, sustainable landscaping, and 

energy conservation. Outside were hybrid cars and fuel efficient 

cars, as well as PPPL’s alternative fuel vehicles and biogators.

Earth Day activities, headed by T.J. McGeachen and Margaret 

King, are coordinated through the Lab’s Materiel and Environmental Services and Maintenance and Operations groups.

ENERGY STAR® was introduced by EPA in 1992 as a 

voluntary, market-based partnership to reduce greenhouse gas 

emissions through energy efficiency. Now in partnership with 

DOE, EPA works with more than 8,000 organizations to improve the energy efficiency of products, homes and businesses. 

The ENERGY STAR® label appears on more than 40 kinds of 

consumer products. To learn more about ENERGY STAR®, visit 

EnergyStar.gov or call 1-888-STAR-YES.

Peacock concluded his remarks to PPPL staff by saying, 

“With your addition, Energy Star will shine brighter and brighter 

– Happy Earth Day.” l
Page 3 PPPL NEWS • Spring 2008

Continued on page 4

PPPL Chief Scientist Bill Tang (left) and PPPL computational scientist Stephane Ethier are at the Lab’s High-Resolution Wall. In the background 

is a plasma turbulence simulation. 

 Two Million Hours 

 of Supercomputing Time Awarded

PPPL Chief Scientist William Tang has been awarded two million processor hours on the new IBM Blue Gene/P supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. He 

and his close collaborator, Stephane Ethier of the Computational Plasma Physics Group at PPPL, will be using the time 

for fusion energy related research.

Tang heads one of 55 scientific projects recently awarded a 

total of 265 million hours by the U.S. Department of Energy’s 

(DOE) Office of Science. Announced January 17, the awards 

are made through the 2008 Innovative and Novel Computational 

Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE), a DOE program 

that supports computationally intensive, large-scale research 

projects.

“The Department of Energy’s Office of Science has two 

of the top ten most powerful supercomputers, and using them 

through the INCITE program is having a transformational effect 

on America’s scientific and economic competitiveness,” DOE 

Under Secretary for Science Raymond L. Orbach said. “Once 

considered the domain of only small groups of researchers, 

supercomputers today are tools for discovery, driving scientific 

advancement across a wide range of disciplines. We’re proud to 

provide these resources to help researchers advance scientific 

knowledge and understanding and thereby to provide insight 

into major scientific and industrial issues.”

Tang’s project focuses on gaining a better understanding 

of turbulence as a primary mechanism by which particles and 

energy diffuse across the confining magnetic field in toroidal 

fusion systems. Results from these studies may have direct 

relevance to the future performance of the international fusion experiment called ITER being planned for construction 

in France. Plasma is a hot, gaseous state of matter used as the 

fuel to produce fusion energy — the power source of the sun 

and the stars. This INCITE project will commence within the 

next month and extend over a year, with expected renewals in 

the subsequent two years.

Tang said, “My colleagues and I are grateful for the INCITE 

award and are excited by the opportunity to use the new IBM 

Blue Gene/P at Argonne National Laboratory to accelerate the 

pace to fresh scientific insights about the complex nature of 

turbulence in hot thermonuclear plasmas.”

Ethier noted that a research project requiring two million 

processor hours would take 228 years to complete using a single 

processor. “With 100,000 processors working in parallel — the 

final configuration of the Blue Gene/P supercomputer at the 

Argonne National Laboratory — the same two million processorhour calculations will take only 20 hours. The real challenge 

is to orchestrate the work and the communication among these 

100,000 processors. If a single processor falls behind, it will 

slow down the others since they must work in unison. As the 

number of processors increases, keeping them in sync becomes 

quite arduous,” he said.
PPPL NEWS • Spring 2008 Page 4

Engineers use technology, mathematics, and 

scientific knowledge to solve practical problems. 

— Wikipedia

The Lab honored its engineers on February 20 with a pizza luncheon in the LSB Commons, followed by a special colloquium, “Engineering in the Modern World,” by Princeton University Professor Michael Littman in the Auditorium. Special thanks 

to PPPL’s Ray Camp and Rose Fuchs for organizing these events for National Engineers Week, celebrated February 17-23. At the 

luncheon, PPPL Engineering Head Mike Williams, who hosted the celebration, noted that the National Academy of Engineering recently identified 14 Engineering Grand Challenges. “Providing energy from fusion was second on the list,” Williams said. 

Above are many of PPPL’s engineers at the pizza party. l

At PPPL, engineers design, build, and operate experimental fusion devices and systems, as well as take care of the Laboratory’s infrastructure. This work includes a broad spectrum of engineering talents in the fields of mechanical and electrical engineering, computer 

systems, and environmental management. 

Co-investigators with Tang and Ethier on this INCITE 

project are Scott Klasky of DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee and Mark Adams of Columbia 

University in New York. Also, Tang said that Hal Finkel, a 

DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellow (CSGF) from 

Yale University, will be joining this effort for three months this 

summer to carry out his CSGF practicum project at PPPL.

In addition to his role at PPPL, Tang is Associate Director for the Princeton Institute for Computational Science and 

Engineering, which was recently established at Princeton 

University to stimulate progress in innovative computational 

science via interdisciplinary alliances involving computer science, applied mathematics, and prominent applications areas 

in the physical sciences and engineering disciplines. Tang 

played a prominent leadership role for the DOE’s development 

of its multi-disciplinary program in advanced computational 

science, SciDAC [Scientific Discovery through Advanced 

Computing] and chaired the SciDAC 2007 Conference in 

Denver.

The 2008 INCITE projects were awarded time at DOE’s 

Leadership Computing Facilities at ORNL and Argonne 

Laboratory, as well as at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Lawrence Berkeley 

National Laboratory in California, and the Molecular Science 

Computing Facility at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 

in Washington. Of the 31 new projects and 24 renewal projects selected, eight are from industry, 17 from universities, 

and 20 from DOE labs as well as other public, private and 

international researchers. Including Tang’s project, Argonne 

will be hosting 20 INCITE projects this year on the IBM Blue 

Gene/P supercomputer. To read about all the 2008 INCITE 

awards, go to the DOE Office of Science home page at: http://

www.science.doe.gov. l

Two Million Hours

Continued from page 3

Engineers Make A World of Difference
Page 5 PPPL NEWS • Spring 2008

Chatting Up ITER

PPPL External Affairs Head John DeLooper (middle) helped operate the U.S. ITER exhibit February 15 through 17 at 

the American Association for the Advancement of Science 

meeting in Boston. At right is Carl Strawbridge, U.S. ITER 

Deputy Project Manager. l

KSTAR Milestone Marked

The world fusion community marked the end of the construction phase of the Korean Superconducting Tokamak 

Advanced Research (KSTAR) Project in a ceremony in Daejeon, Republic of Korea, last fall. Emphasis now shifts to preparations of the device for first plasma, scheduled for August 

2008. The main objective of KSTAR is to demonstrate steadystate operation of a high performance advanced tokamak device. KSTAR is expected to operate through 2025.

The construction milestone ceremony, attended by Republic 

of Korea President Roh Moo-hyun, ITER Director General Kaname Ikeda, and other dignitaries, followed a two-day workshop 

on the status of the U.S. KSTAR team’s efforts. Under the U.S.-

Korea bilateral agreement, collaboration programs have been 

carried out with joint funding, including the Electron Cyclotron 

Heating launcher, innovative shutter system, diagnostic cassette design, and control system development. PPPL physicist 

Hyeon Park (recently retired) represented the Laboratory at the 

workshop and ceremony. l

Above are U.S. participants in front of KSTAR and, in photo at bottom, 

are President Roh Moo-hyun of the Republic of Korea (third from 

right), ITER Director General Kaname Ikeda (second from right) and 

other dignitaries unveiling the completed KSTAR device.

Photo by Carol DeLooper

PPPL Hosts Middle School Science Bowl

Princeton's Witherspoon School Takes Top Prize

Witherspoon Middle School team members James 

Schure (green shirt) and David Wright race their 

model hydrogen fuel cell car at the New Jersey Regional 

Competition of the National Middle School Science Bowl® 

at PPPL on April 12. The Witherspoon Middle School team 

took first place. The U.S. Department of Energy sponsors 

the regional middle school competition. l
PPPL NEWS • Spring 2008 Page 6

On a wintry Saturday morning every year, they 

trade snoozing in 

and lingering over 

coffee for simple 

addition and timekeeping, reading 

and ruling on complex questions, and 

welcoming teams.

These are the 

Lab’s Science Bowl 

volunteers, numbering at least three 

dozen annually. 

They include PPPL 

employees, families, and friends, 

Princeton University staff and students, and others 

from local institutions who serve 

as scorekeepers, 

timekeepers, judges, moderators, and 

other helpers.

This year, the 

Lab recognized two extraordinary volunteers for their Science 

Bowl efforts — PPPL scientist Eliot Feibush and PPPL engineer 

Thomas McGeachen. The two received “Outstanding Volunteer” Awards for their continuing efforts during the February 

23 opening of the U.S. DOE Regional Science Bowl for high 

school teams hosted by PPPL. Feibush was noted for developing 

a clock program for Science Bowl that is computer portable and 

allows for better viewing, and McGeachen for his many years 

of service dedicated to the event.

Feibush remembers watching the College Bowl on TV with 

his father in the late ‘60s.

“Later, in high school, I moderated a Quiz Bowl between a 

student team and a faculty team. Naturally I was intrigued by 

the Science Bowl at PPPL. I’ve volunteered as a judge during 

the past four years,” he says.

He saw the clock running on some very old Apple computers 

that were maintained just for the event. “That’s when I decided 

we would benefit from a technology upgrade. The weekend after 

the 2006 Science Bowl, I wrote a new clock program in Java so 

it would run on any contemporary laptop,” Feibush says. “Then 

my two Science Education summer interns spent a week adding 

enhancements based on user feedback from the timekeepers. This 

And the Honors Go To ...

Science Bowl Volunteers Feibush and McGeachen

year we connected 

the laptops to projectors so everyone had 

a better view of the 

clock.”

Feibush called 

the Science Bowl 

“very worthwhile.” 

“I am glad to help 

with it. I continue 

to be amazed by 

the students who 

answer the challenging questions so 

quickly,” he adds.

McGeachen began volunteering as a 

timekeeper in 1996. 

“I like the timekeeping chore. It’s 

pretty structured. 

I’ve got it down. I use 

the program Eliot 

did and also use my 

wrist watch when 

time runs out and 

for the five-second 

toss-up questions,” 

McGeachen says.

Why does he consistently give up a Saturday morning every 

year? “It’s good for me to encourage younger people to become 

interested in science and engineering,” he says. “And part of 

the draw is watching the competitions.”

This year — the sixteenth for PPPL to host the bowl — 30 

teams from 19 area schools participated, with High Tech High 

School winning first place. And 40 volunteers were here to help 

with the day. Hats off to all the volunteers! l

From left are Science Bowl honorees Eliot Feibush and Tom McGeachen with their plaques.
Page 7 PPPL NEWS • Spring 2008

About 200 area female students, grades 7 through 12, came to PPPL March 14 for the Expand Your Horizons Young 

Women’s Conference in Science, Math and Technology at 

PPPL.

The conference included talks by various women in the 

sciences, as well as exhibits and a lunchtime presentation by 

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center aerospace engineer Aprille 

Ericsson. In addition to NASA, other presenting and exhibiting organizations were the Fashion Institute of Technology, 

Bristol-Myers Squibb, the Delaware Valley Innovation Network, 

the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Liberty Science 

Center, Princeton University, and PPPL. PPPL’s Chris Ritter, 

Lena Scimeca, and Tiana Dodson organized the event, with 

many staff volunteers. 

Above, Dodson (far left) talks about science and engineering to a group of young participants. 

Below, PPPL environmental scientist Virginia Finley (far 

right) shows the girls water samples collected from the site. The 

samples included aquatic invertebrates, which are biological 

indicators of water quality. l

If You Show Them Science

They Will Come

Success Marks 24th Year for 

PPPL's Science-on-Saturday

Princeton University Professor Iain D. Couzin delivers a talk, “Collective Motion and Decision-making in 

Animal Groups,” on February 9 as part of PPPL’s 2008 Science-on-Saturday lecture series. The series, organized by 

PPPL’s Ronald Hatcher and James Morgan, included nine 

talks ranging from computation in astrophysics and wound 

healing to the science and art of population-based health 

care. Featured on several January through March Saturdays in the Lab’s Auditorium, the talks drew hundreds of 

students, teachers, parents, and community members each 

time. The series marked its 24th consecutive year with an 

exciting collaboration with the Liberty Science Center, 

which offered four of the talks broadcast live from its Interactive Theater in the Jennifer A. Chalsty Center for Science Learning and Teaching. Below, Princeton University 

Professor Jean Schwarzbauer gives a talk, “Scrapes, Scabs, 

and Scars — a Wound Healing Saga,” on January 26. l
PPPL NEWS • Spring 2008 Page 8

Name: Alba Castano

Position: Castano is a Radio Frequency (RF) Operator 

and Technician in PPPL’s Experimental Heating Systems 

Branch, Electrical Engineering Division. She works on RF 

systems during outages and operates RF sources for NSTX 

experiments. Castano also edits and revises procedures for 

RF as needed. In addition, she has supported electronics 

fabrication and testing efforts, as well as NCSX vacuum 

vessel coil wiring. Castano received an associate’s degree 

in electronics engineering from DeVry University and 

worked on RF for another company before joining PPPL’s 

staff in December of 2006.

Quote: “I always liked pulling things apart and putting 

them back together,” says Castano, explaining that as 

a youngster she was intrigued by how small household 

appliances were engineered. One time her mother tossed 

out a radio that had broken and when she returned from 

work, Castano was listening to it. She had retrieved it 

from the trash, taken it apart to see what was inside, and 

fixed it. A week later, the blender broke and her mom told 

her, “Fix it.”

A typical day for Castano at PPPL begins with checking 

e-mails and then heading to an area of the RF Building 

nicknamed “The Dungeon,” where she and her workmates 

discuss the work plan for the day over coffee and then 

tackle projects centered around repairing, testing, and 

running RF heating components and instruments. Of 

the force that rules her job, she offers, “I have respect for 

electricity.” Before she came to PPPL, the largest units 

she built measured a half-inch by two inches and the 

capacitors were not larger than a grain of rice. “At PPPL 

everything is so much bigger. When I came here I was like 

a kid in a candy store,” Castano says.

Born in Colombia, Castano moved to the U.S. with her 

mother and six sisters as a teen. While she enjoyed taking 

apart and reassembling items, she aspired to join the 

medical field. “As a kid, I always wanted to be a doctor, 

but a math teacher convinced me I would be better at 

engineering,” she says. “But I still like blood and guts. I 

like helping people, basically.”

Other Interests: Four years ago, Castano found a way 

to fulfill her wish of serving in the medical field. She 

completed 140 hours of Emergency Medical Technician 

(EMT) training and began volunteering as an EMT in 

her hometown of North Brunswick. Now she is on call 

two nights each week — one as the primary responder 

and the other as a secondary responder — providing 

services to patients ranging from heart attack victims to 

expectant mothers.

“One time I delivered a baby. It was the coolest thing 

— scary — but great,” says Castano, herself the mother 

of two daughters, Paola, 15, and Sandra, 12. Alba was 

inside the ambulance with the soon-to-be-mom. “I had 

my gloves on, but the OB kit was not even opened and 

the baby was right there,” she recalled. “First I cleared out 

the baby’s nose and throat and warmed the baby up. I put 

clamps on the umbilical cord and my partner — who by 

this time had gotten to the back of the ambulance from 

the driver’s seat — cut the cord. Delivering that baby was 

definitely the best experience I’ve ever had as an EMT.” 

She also is an Advance Rescue Technician, responsible for 

extricating patients from cars, collapsed buildings, and 

other places a patient can’t be removed with conventional 

methods.

Castano also enjoys travel and camping, often pitching a 

tent for herself and her daughters at area parks, and has 

coached her daughters’ soccer teams.

Castano says she didn’t know much about fusion when she 

began at PPPL, but immediately fell under its spell. “Every 

day I learn something new — I don’t think I’ll ever stop 

learning here.” l

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