Dr. Anderson’s undergraduate thesis designed a modified waveplate for an optical tweezers technique using lasers to trap micron-sized particles. His doctoral thesis developed a method of adiabat shaping techniques for mitigating the Rayleigh–Taylor instability in direct-drive inertial confinement fusion implosions to improve target performance. The basic laser pulse design described in that work has become the standard for direct-drive implosions. As a postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Anderson developed a simulation platform for modeling cone-in-shell target hydrodynamics for fast ignition. He also performed stability analysis and shock timing studies for shock ignition, culminating in a point design for shock ignition at the National Ignition Facility.
Dr. Anderson is a code developer for the multidimensional radiation–hydrodynamics code, DRACO. He also actively collaborates with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on the use and development of the 3-D radiation–hydrodynamics code, HYDRA, for direct-drive simulations. He is currently investigating long-wavelength asymmetry sources and their impact on experimental observables through simulations and experiments.
