Distinguished Professor Bill Colson
Distinguished Professor of Physics

Dr. Colson joined NPS in 1989. His research is centered on the theory and simulation of free-electron lasers. Prof. Colson has been the Principal Investigator of 45 research contracts with LANL, LLNL, SPAWAR, AFOSR, ONR, NASA, NRL, LBL, and NSF. He has published 120 research papers, holds 3 patents, and has given 62 invited lectures. He has been a Guest Editor for IEEE Journal of Quantum of Electronics, and is a Co-Editor of a book entitled Free Electron Laser Handbook. Prof. Colson has advised over 48 M.S. thesis students and 4 Ph.D. dissertation students at NPS. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association of Physics Teachers, the Optical Society of America, the American Society of Naval Engineers. He was awarded the 1989 Free Electron Laser Prize. Phone, 831-656-2765, Email: colson@nps.edu

Professor Bob Armstead
Associate Professor of Physics

Dr. Armstead joined the faculty of NPS in 1965. He has worked on problems relating the theory of low energy electron-atom scattering. His current interests are in the teaching of physics and in the computer simulation of free-electron lasers. Phone: 831-656-2125, Email: armstead@nps.edu

Dr. Joe Blau
Research Professor

Dr. Blau joined NPS in 1989. His research interest is computer simulations of Free Electron Lasers. Over the past 25 years he has developed, along with Prof. Colson, a set of programs for simulating FELs on desktop workstations. His recent research, and an aspect of his Doctoral Dissertation, has been on short Rayleigh length optical cavities for high power FELs, FEL amplifiers and oscillators, and the 4 dimensional simulation of optical pulses in the FEL. Phone: 831-656-2635, Email: blau@nps.edu

Professor John R. Harris
Research Assistant Professor of Physics

Dr. Harris was born in Greenville, NC. He received the B.S. degree in physics from Duke University, Durham, NC, in 2000 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2002 and 2005. From 2005 to 2009 he was with the Accelerator Design and Code Group, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In 2009 he joined the physics department, Naval Postgraduate School. Dr. Harris’ interests span the production, transport, acceleration, and use of charged particle beams.. Phone: 209-534-1229, Email: jrharris@nps.edu

Professor John Lewellen
Associate Professor of Physics

Dr. Lewellen joined NPS in 2007. His research is centered on the development, testing and operation of high-brightness electron beam sources, and accelerators for FEL and other light source applications. Dr. Lewellen has published over 100 papers, holds 7 patents, and has given approximately 30 invited lectures. He is a reviewer for Physical Review and Review of Scientific Instruments. He is a member of the SPIE, APS, IEEE, and the American Society of Naval Engineers. He has served on the SPIE scholarship committee, the LCLS Facility Advisory Committee, the Joint Technology Office FEL Technical Area Working Group, and the Office of Naval Research Innovative Naval Prototype for Free-Electron Laser technical review team. He is the recipient of the 2009 USPAS Prize (young investigator) for achievement in accelerator science and technology.
Phone: 831-656-2420, Email: jwlewell@nps.navy.mil

Professor Richard Swent
Research Associate Professor of Physics

Dr. Swent joined NPS in 2009. He has a B.A. in Physics from Occidental College and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He has worked for over 20 years in the fields of superconducting accelerators and free electron lasers at Stanford University and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. He has experience working with high voltage systems, cryogenic systems, vacuum systems, low-level and high-power RF systems and lasers. At Stanford he was chair of the University Laser Safety Committee and served on the Administrative Panel for Radiological Safety. He has over 50 publications and is a member of APS, IEEE and AAAS.
Email: rlswent@nps.edu

Professor Brian Rusnak
IPA Research Professor

Mr. Rusnak joined the NPS FEL Group in 2009 under an Interdepartmental Personnel Agreement as a visiting scientist from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He has over 23 years experience in accelerator physics and technology development spanning high voltage engineering, high power RF engineering, and normal-conducting and superconducting RF resonator development and testing. He has managed 10 projects with a combined value of over 11 M$ in the past 15 years, and was as a Group Leader for the last 3 years prior to taking professional leave. He has over 40 publications, given 12 invited talks, holds 1 patent, and is a member of the American Physical Society
Phone: 831-656-3095, Email: brusnak@nps.edu

Professor Keith Cohn
Research Assistant Professor

Dr. Cohn joined the NPS faculty in July of 2009. Prior to his appointment to NPS, he was a graduate student, then a postdoctoral scholar, in the Superconducting Accelerator/Free Electron Laser group at Stanford University, where he studied novel techniques in infrared imaging with high spatial resolution, ion trapping in linear accelerators, and higher order mode excitation in energy recovery linacs. His current topic of research at NPS includes the modeling of pulsed weapon loads on anticipated power systems of future electronic ships.
Email: krcohn@nps.edu

Raquel Herold
Research Associate

Research Associate in Electromagnetic Weapons. Raquel joined the Physics Department in 2004. She provides support for the Free Electron Laser and Railgun research and development projects. She ensure the two projects stay within budget and that timelines are adhered to. Her B.S. Degree will be complimentary to all tasks related to setting up the NPS Free Electron Laser and the Railgun research and development. She have a forte’ in preparing presentations for conferences, workshops, and sponsor reviews, as well as preparation of funding requests projects. 

Mr. Eric Adint
Research Associate

Mr. Adint has 10 years professional experience supporting computers. He is experienced in the programming languages C, C++, Perl, and Postscript. He has extensive experience with workstations and servers using operating systems UNIX, Mac OS 7 through OS X, Microsoft 3.11 through XP. He has extensive experience in network, database, imaging, design architecture and implementation.
Phone: 831-656-3440, Email: ehadint@nps.edu