Abstract
The fusion energy research and development landscape has seen significant advances in recent years, with important scientific and technological breakthroughs and a rapid rise of investment in the private sector. The workforce needs of the nascent fusion industry are growing at a rate that academic workforce development programs are not currently able to match. This paper presents the findings of the Workforce Accelerator for Fusion Energy Development Conference held in Hampton, Virginia, United States of America (USA), on 29-30 May 2024, which was funded by the National Science Foundation of the USA. A major goal of the conference was to focus on bringing public and private stakeholders together to identify opportunities for partnership in fusion research and education with the goal of meeting the needs for a talented and diverse workforce. Representatives from industry, academia, and national laboratories participated in the conference through the preparation of white papers, presentations, and group discussions, and the production of recommendations to address the challenges facing the fusion workforce in the USA.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 083701 |
| Journal | Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion |
| Volume | 67 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 2025 |
Funding
This work was funded by the National Science Foundation through a Division of Physics Grant Award Number 2346410. We are grateful to the Hampton University staff who were integral to the success of the Workforce Accelerator for Fusion Energy Development conference. C. Paz-Soldan. was responsible for supervision and project administration. C Lowe, C Paz-Soldan and T Carter were responsible for funding acquisition. C Lowe, C Paz-Soldan, D A Schaffner, E Belonohy, E Kostadinova, L E Coté and T Carter were responsible for conceptualization, curation, formal analysis, investigation, original draft writing, review, and editing. B Makani, J Deshpande, K Kelly, K E Thome, S de Clark, S L Sharma and V Kruse were responsible for conceptualization, curation, formal analysis, and investigation. Many of the findings and recommendations summarized in this report were outlined in detail in the white papers submitted for the conference, and we are grateful to all of these authors for their contributions.
Keywords
- diversity
- education
- fusion energy
- partnerships
- public engagement
- workforce development