The new ITER management structure takes shape

CADARACHE, 11 MARCH 2011 – The ITER Organization has appointed Dr. Richard Hawryluk as the new Deputy-Director General and Director of the ITER Administration Department. From 1997 to 2008, Rich Hawryluk was the Deputy-Director of the US Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and his career in magnetic fusion energy spans more than three decades. He will assume the new post at ITER in April.

“Rich’s appointment to these key position will be seen worldwide as a major boost to the ITER project,” said PPPL Director Stewart Prager. “The upper management of ITER is now entirely filled with ‘the best in the world.’ While we will greatly miss his irreplaceable leadership within PPPL, Rich’s new activity is very much a net plus for all of us in fusion, given the central role of ITER to the world fusion program.”

Already in January this year, Dr. Remmelt Haange, the former Technical Director of the W7-X Stellarator project based at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald, Germany, joined the ITER team as Deputy Director-General and Head of the ITER Project Department. Remmelt Haange was also involved in the construction of various large-scale fusion devices such as JET, and he was part of the Japanese Joint Work Site for ITER at Naka as Head of Site. The Department for Safety Quality & Security remains directed, as before, by Deputy-Director Carlos Alejaldre.

With these two recent appointments, the new three-department structure of the ITER Organization is now fully in place and the strategic management of the project strengthened,” said ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima, who was appointed by the ITER Council in July 2010 and charged with the reorganization of the project’s management structure. “I want to express my gratitude for the patience and understanding expressed so far, both within the ITER Organization, and amongst our Members,” Motojima added. “The restructuring of a project with the dimension of ITER takes time, but it is a necessary step to moving on to our overall goal: building ITER and showing to the world that fusion is the way forward.”

ITER has been established to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion power. ITER is a unique international collaboration bringing together China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the USA. For more information on ITER, please visit www.iter.org.

For the electronic version of this Press Release: http://www.iter.org/org/team/odg/comm/pressreleases

CONTACT

Sabina Griffith
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sabina.griffith@iter.org