Walter Gekelman

Walter Gekelman leads the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) Laboratory at UCLA. Under his leadership the LAPD became the centerpiece of a DOE/NSF national user facility. Prof Gekelman was Director of the Basic Plasma Science Facility (BaPSF) for 15 years. He has worked on a number of topics directly related to space physics including the physics of plasma waves, magnetic reconnection, and wave-particle interaction. Recently, he has been engaged in a project funded by a DoD MURI to investigate remediation of trapped energetic particles in the Earth’s radiation belts using plasma waves. In addition to the work on basic plasma physics he is engaged in a low temperature plasma physics program with industrial support from LAM research corporation, one the world’s biggest manufacturers of etch and deposition tools used by the semiconductor industry.