Panellists

Tim Bestwick
Deputy CEO of UK Atomic Energy Authority

Tim is the Chief Development Officer and Deputy CEO at the UK Atomic Energy Authority. He is also the Chair of the Harwell Campus (the major science and innovation campus in Oxfordshire) and Chair of the Space Partnership (industry, government and academia growing the UK Space sector). After corporate research in optoelectronics and two start-up technology companies, Tim now works for the UKAEA, leading the commercialization of fusion technology. He is passionate about the opportunities for new spin out businesses from big science programmes, and also creating mixed ‘public-private’ campuses where innovation thrives. Tim was awarded an OBE in 2023 for services to the commercialisation of science, technology and innovation.

Claudia Brunner
Head of the Max Planck Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization

Dr. Claudia Brunner is head of the Max Planck Research Group “Turbulence and Wind Energy“ at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, which she joined in 2022. Her research focuses on experimental studies of the fluid dynamics of wind energy, including the effects of atmospheric turbulence on wind turbines and the interactions between turbines within wind farms. In addition, she conducts policy research on the representation of wind energy in global techno-economic models. She received her PhD from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. There, she received a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship from the United States Department of Defense, and a Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Fellowship from the High Meadows Environmental Institute and the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. She holds an M.A. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University.

Thomas Hamacher
Chair of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Systems, Technical University of Munich

Prof. Hamacher (*1964) conducts research in the field of energy and systems analysis. His research focuses on urban energy systems, the integration of renewable energies into the power grid and innovative nuclear systems, in particular fusion. His work also focuses on methods and fundamentals of energy models. After studying physics in Bonn, Aachen and at Columbia University in New York, Prof. Hamacher completed his doctorate on the subject of “Baryonic B decays” at the University of Hamburg.

Since 1996, Prof. Hamacher has worked at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, most recently as head of the Energy and Systems Studies Group. From 2010 to 2013, Prof. Hamacher was acting head of the Chair of Energy Economics and Application Technology. In September 2013, he was appointed Full Professor of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Systems. He was Director of the Munich School of Engineering (MSE) and is now Director at the Munich Institute of Integrated Materials, Energy and Process Engineering (MEP).

Melanie Windridge
CEO of Fusion Energy Insights

Dr Melanie Windridge is a specialist in fusion energy who helps people see the value and opportunities of fusion. Melanie is the founder and CEO of Fusion Energy Insights, which provides independent, actionable information to decision-makers in the fusion industry. Additionally she is a co-founder of two other fusion industry service companies—FusionXInvest and Fusion Advisory Services Ltd. She has a PhD in plasma physics (fusion energy) from Imperial College London, and sits on the Advisory Boards of the UK Fusion Cluster, London GreenCity (an accelerator of post-startup clean technology entrepreneurs) and the US non-profit Energy for the Common Good. Melanie was previously UK Director of the Fusion Industry Association. In 2022 she was elected a Fellow of the Clean Growth Leadership Network. Melanie is the author of Aurora: In Search of the Northern Lights and Star Chambers: the race for fusion power, as well as writing online.
www.fusionenergyinsights.com
www.melaniewindridge.co.uk

Robert Wolf
Max Planck Society and director at the Greifswald Branch of Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics

After studying physics at the Technical University in Aachen, Robert Wolf – born in Munich in 1964 – took his PhD at the worldwide largest experiment for fusion research, the joint European experiment JET (Joint European Torus) in Culham (Great Britain). In 1995, he became scientific assistant at Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics in Berlin and one year later in Garching. Here the experimental physicist was mainly concerned with the development of improved plasma states at the tokamak experiments ASDEX Upgrade and during longer visits again at JET.

In 2002, he became director of the Institute of Plasma Physics at the Research Centre Jülich and received his doctor rerum naturalium habilitatus from the University Mons-Hainaut (Belgium). In 2003 he was appointed university professor at Ruhr University in Bochum, in 2011 at Technical University of Berlin. Since August 2006, he has been Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society and director at the Greifswald Branch of Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics.