In memoriam: William J. Hogan

Abstract

The Editorial staff of Nuclear Fusion were shocked by the news of the death of our former Associate Editor for Inertial Confinement (ICF), Bill Hogan. It seems like only yesterday that we saw him at the IAEA Conference in Vilamoura with all his enthusiasm and vigour. During 2005 we kept in electronic contact with him until his successor, Max Tabak, took over the Associate Editorship for ICF. We expected to see him again at the Chengdu conference but he passed away on October 19 at the age of 66 after a short and intense battle with pancreatic cancer.We are indebted to Bill for his continuous efforts to bring the ICF community in closer contact with the MCF researchers, in particular by promoting ICF publications in Nuclear Fusion. The number of ICF submissions went up considerably during his editorship. In particular his special issue based on the presentations at IFSA 2003 turned out to be a great success (December issue 2004). We knew it would be, since Bill was the editor of a book published by the IAEA in 1995 called `Energy from Inertial Fusion'. In this book Bill brought together all the information on the state of art of ICF research written by the leading researchers in this field. At the editorial office we enjoyed the lively telephone conversations with him and his concise and punchy e-mails. We will miss him.We received the following description of Bill's career and achievements from his friends and colleagues at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) where he was employed for 37 years. At LLNL he had a key role in developing the concept of inertial fusion for energy applications (IFE) and he led the groups working on several of the seminal systems.Bill received a B.S. with honours in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1962 and earned a PhD in Elementary Particle Physics in 1966 from Princeton University. He joined LLNL in 1966, working on a number of energy and defence programs. In 1983 he was named the Leader of the Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) Applications program, and in 1986 a Deputy ICF Program Leader. Bill was a pioneer in analysing the applications of inertial fusion.He spent a year in Moscow, in 1992–93, as a Senior Project Coordinator for the International Science and Technology Centre, helping the transition of Russian scientists working on classified subjects to non-military related research. Returning to LLNL he joined the National Ignition Facility (NIF) team and rose to the position of Assistant Associate Director of LLNL for NIF Programs in 1999. He retired from LLNL in 2001 but continued to consult for LLNL and for several other fusion laboratories.Bill played a prominent role in publishing and disseminating information about inertial fusion energy and in organizing many fusion conferences. As mentioned before, he served as Scientific Editor of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) book `Energy from Inertial Fusion' published in 1995. He was the Technical Editor of a special issue of the American Nuclear Society journal Fusion Science and Technology on Fast Ignition Inertial Fusion, published in 2006. He was the author of the Laser Fusion Chapter and Section Editor for the Inertial Fusion Section of a Springer-Verlag Volume on Energy Sources 2002–2004. He was the founding Organizing Chairman of the series of International Conferences on Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications (IFSA). This conference has become the leading international conference in the field.Bill contributed generously with his time to the work of fusion organizations. He was a member of the APS, ANS, AAAS, Sigma Xi and Fusion Power Associates. He served on the Editorial Board of Fusion Science and Technology and as the Associate Editor of Nuclear Fusion. He served as chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency Advisory Group on Inertial Fusion Energy from 1991 to 1996. He was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award of the Fusion Energy Division of the American Nuclear Society in 1996. He made significant technical and leadership contributions to the field of fusion energy and ICF during his career.His hard work, friendship, enthusiasm and positive attitude will be sorely missed by his many friends and colleagues around the world.