Professor Peter Norreys FInstP is a Supernumerary Fellow in Physics and Dean of Degrees at Univ and Professor of Inertial Fusion Science at the University of Oxford.

Professsor Norreys was awarded the bilateral Institute of Physics/French Physical Society’s 2025 Fernand Holweck Medal and Prize, “for his outstanding contributions to fundamental studies of high energy density plasmas using high power and petawatt-class lasers, including fast ignition inertial fusion, particle beam acceleration and ultra-bright X-ray sources.”

Before then, he received the American Nuclear Society’s 2023 Edward Teller Medal Award, “for pioneering research in the use of high-intensity lasers for producing unique electron, ion, and x-ray beams for scientific applications in fast ignition fusion, advanced accelerators and probing of plasmas.”

In 2019, he was awarded a €700k two-year grant from EUROfusion (a consortium of national fusion research institutes located in the European Union, the UK, Switzerland and Ukraine) to work on “routes towards high gain inertial fusion energy” at the Megajoule Laser facility in Bordeaux, France. Professor Norreys’ group at Oxford is exploring various research topics including plasma accelerators, quantum optics, and machine learning.

Professor Norreys is also the recipient of the Institute of Physics’ 2013 Payne-Gaposchkin Medal and Prize for his original contributions to relativistic laser-plasma interaction physics, the American Physical Society’s 2006 Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research for his contributions to inertial fusion science and, as UK team leader, the 2007 Daiwa Adrian Prize for UK-Japan collaborative investigations into new areas of high energy density science.

Read more…