The fusion energy research and development landscape has seen significant advances in recent years, with important scientific and technological breakthroughs and a rapid rise of investment in the private sector. The workforce needs of the nascent fusion industry are growing at a rate that academic workforce development programs are not currently able to match. This paper presents the findings of the Workforce Accelerator for Fusion Energy Development Conference held in Hampton, Virginia, United States of America (USA), on May 29-30 2024, which was funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF). A major goal of the conference was to focus on bringing public and private stakeholders together to identify opportunities for partnership in fusion research and education with the goal of meeting the needs for a talented and diverse workforce. Representatives from industry, academia, and national laboratories participated in the conference through the preparation of white papers, presentations, and group discussions, and the production of recommendations to address the challenges facing the US fusion workforce.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2501.03372,
title = {Accelerating the Fusion Workforce},
author = {Carlos Paz-Soldan and Eva Belonohy and Troy Carter and Laleh E. Cote and Evdokiya Kostadinova and Calvin Lowe and Subash L. Sharma and Sybil de Clark and Jaydeep Deshpande and Kate Kelly and Veronika Kruse and Bobbi Makani and David A. Schaffner and Kathreen E. Thome},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.03372},
year = {2025}
}