News & Notes | Sept. 8 - The Princetonian

academic achievements

This year’s major academic awards, announced at the yearly Opening Exercises at the University Chapel on Sunday afternoon, were overwhelmingly claimed by international students.

The Class of 1939 Princeton Scholar Award was shared by Susan Butler ’09 of Florida and Holger Staude ’09 of Germany. Butler and Staude are both economics concentrators. Butler is a member of Wilson College, and Staude is a member of Whitman College.

The George B. Wood Legacy Junior Prize was presented to Simion Filip ’09 of Moldova, who is a mathematics concentrator and a member of Forbes College.

The George B. Wood Legacy Sophomore Prize was awarded to Bogdan Stoica ’10 of Romania, who is concentrating in physics and is a member of Whitman College.

The Freshman First Honor Prize was shared by Oguzhan Atay ’11 of Turkey and Qingzhen (Sophie) Wang ’11 of China. Atay is a member of Wilson College and plans to concentrate in molecular biology. Wang is a member of Forbes College and plans to major in either operations research and financial engineering or physics.

The Class of 1939 award recognizes cumulative academic achievement over the past three years, whereas the other three prizes recognize achievement for the past year.

Petersack ’08 elected Young Alumni Trustee

Meaghan Petersack ’08 has been elected the newest young alumni trustee, University officials have announced.

Petersack, a Wilson School major from Mercerville, N.J., will serve a four-year term on the Board of Trustees, along with fellow young alumni trustees Jim Williamson ’07, Brady Walkinshaw ’06 and Matt Margolin ’05.

She is the first female young alumni trustee since Sarah Stein ’97.

Petersack was the Class of 2008 secretary and defeated former USG president Rob Biederman ’08 and former class president Grant Gittlin ’08 in a three-way final race for the position.

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Prager named Plasma Physics Lab director

The University has chosen University of Wisconsin physicist Stewart Prager to replace Robert Goldston GS ’77 as director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Goldston, who announced his decision to resign last December, will step down this fall after more than 10 years as director.

“We believe that there is no better person than Stewart Prager to lead the Plasma Physics Laboratory as it moves into the next phase in its distinguished history,” President Tilghman said in the statement announcing Prager’s appointment.

Prager, who is currently director of the Madison Symmetric Torus experiment and a physics professor at the University of Wisconsin, specializes in fusion energy research. He has gained international acclaim through his experiments on future reactors and the properties of plasmas.

Prager’s appointment comes during a transitional period for PPPL. The management contract for PPPL, which the University has held since the lab’s inception in 1951, expires Sept. 30 and will be open to competitive bidding. PPPL is one of 10 national science laboratories funded by the DOE’s Office of Science.

In May, the DOE stopped funding the National Compact Stellarator Experiment at PPPL after determining that the project would not be finished on time or on budget. The $102 million project, started in 2003, aimed to study the possible uses of the compact stellarator as the basis for a fusion power reactor.

Instead, the DOE decided that the lab should devote its efforts to the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX), a project focused on plasma geometry and heating that is at the forefront of fusion physics.

Dean of Research A.J. Stewart Smith ’66 said in the statement that that Prager’s experience in fusion physics will help guide the lab into a new era of research

Prager earned his Ph.D. in plasma physics from Columbia. He is expected to be appointed a professor in the astrophysical sciences department this fall.