Millennium Magazine_8th Ed

106 Millennium - A Marquis Who’s Who Magazine ENERGY, ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING B y the age of 12, Donald H. McNeill was considering careers in medicine, foreign affairs, languages, and science. Inspired by Professor Harvey White and his television program “Atomic Age Physics” on “Continental Classroom,” he resolved to pursue higher education in physics. He graduated from Eckerd College with a Bachelor of Science in physics in 1966. At that time, he received a Marshall Scholarship with which he studied for two years at Edinburgh University, receiving a Bachelor of Science, with honors, in mathematics and mathematical physics in 1968. He also traveled extensively during his time at Edinburgh, including an overland trip to India with Comex 2, led by Lionel Gregory. He then went to Columbia University, where he received a PhD in physics in 1974 with research under Professor Robert A. Gross in experimental plasma physics and a dissertation entitled “A Thomson scattering study of collisional-shock heated plasmas.” While at Columbia, he met the love of his life, Fannie Peczenik, a writer, linguist, and PhD in English literature, with whom he lived happily for 45 years. His first postdoctoral work was at Oak Ridge National Laboratory until 1978. There, he continued working with Thomson scattering and began work, independently and with colleagues, in various areas of spectroscopy and plasma heating which have interested him throughout his career. He then worked at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory until 1989, after which he became an independent consultant in various areas of plasma physics, instrumentation, spectroscopy, combustion, arms control and scientific translation. He has worked on research grants from several government agencies. He spent three years at the ENEA fusion energy center in Frascati, Italy, from 1990 to 1993, as an independent consultant working on the FTU tokamak, and held a National Research Council Senior Research Associateship at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pittsburgh from 2001-02, studying laser ignition of combustion. He retains membership in the American Physical Society and various scientific societies and hopes to travel and learn additional languages in the near future. DONALD H. MCNEILL, PHD CONSULTANT, RESEARCHER Bronx, NY