Dr. Harding is a senior scientist and Group Leader for the Target Group. His responsibility is to provide targets for experiments that use OMEGA and OMEGA EP—a task that is made possible by the outstanding abilities of the Group members and NNSA-designated Target contractors. One notable accomplishment was the design and commissioning of the Cryogenic Target Handling System to provide DT-ice–containing targets for OMEGA. Other responsibilities are to fabricate and develop new targets for inertial confinement fusion and high-energy-density experiments, which is a multidisciplinary endeavor involving microfabrication, metrology, cryogenic engineering, condensed-matter science, and materials development. Prior to joining LLE in 1995 he worked at NASA’s Lewis Research Center. He has a faculty appointment in the Chemical Engineering Department and has supervised 12 Ph.D. students who did their research in the Target Group. He has a Ph.D. from Cambridge University and has served on review committees for the National Academies, the Department of Energy, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His current areas of research are plasma–vapor deposition processes, microfluidic encapsulation methods, design of cryogenic systems, and crystal growth of hydrogen isotopes.
