Peter Schiffer
McComas concludes service as vice president for PPPL as NASA mission nears launch
David McComas, Princeton University’s vice president for the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), will conclude his PPPL leadership role to focus on the successful completion and launch of NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP). McComas is the principal investigator for the IMAP mission, which is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral next year to advance understanding of the space environment in our solar neighborhood.
Peter Schiffer, Princeton’s dean for research and the Class of 1909 Professor of Physics, will succeed McComas as vice president for PPPL, a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory managed by Princeton University. Schiffer will maintain his dean for research role. The transition will take place on Sept. 2.
“I am grateful to David McComas for stewarding the University’s relationship with the Plasma Physics Laboratory and the Department of Energy so conscientiously over the past eight years,” said Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber. “Dave’s outstanding scientific acumen, administrative skill and personal integrity have benefited us tremendously over the course of his tenure. I wish him well as he devotes himself full-time to his research program, and I look forward to working with Peter Schiffer as he adds this new role to his portfolio.”
As PPPL vice president since 2016, McComas has served as a liaison between senior University leadership, the laboratory and the Department of Energy. At Princeton, his executive leadership has included service as a member of the President’s cabinet and the Executive Compliance Committee.
PPPL conducts essential research using plasma — the fourth state of matter — to solve some of the world’s toughest science and technology challenges, including the development of fusion energy as a clean, safe and virtually limitless power source.
“I feel great about the contributions I made in overseeing PPPL as a University vice president, but I also feel that after eight and a half years, it’s time for me to focus on my other primary job,” he said. “PPPL is vital to the national interest, and it’s also vital to the national interest that we get IMAP launched and working perfectly. It’s critical for NASA heliophysics and space science, and as the principal investigator, I’m responsible for the entire mission.”
Since coming to Princeton, McComas has been a half-time vice president and half-time professor of astrophysical sciences. As he transitions to a full-time role on the astrophysics faculty, he will continue leading his roughly 35-person research team, teaching his unique space physics undergraduate lab, and serving as the mission leader for IMAP and other NASA missions and instruments. After he steps down as vice president, McComas will be a special adviser to the provost and continue to serve on the boards of directors for both PPPL and Brookhaven National Laboratory.
“Dave’s expertise has been timely, important and valued,” said Princeton Provost Jennifer Rexford, who is also the Gordon Y.S. Wu Professor in Engineering. “PPPL’s research mission, working toward an efficient and clean energy source, is critically important for humanity. Dave is a deep scientist in his own right, and he also understands all the engineering and operational issues involved in working at the leading edge of technology.”
Schiffer was the logical choice to succeed him as vice president for PPPL, Rexford said.
She noted that the scope of research at PPPL has diversified in the past several years, incorporating research into microelectronics, quantum sensors and devices, and sustainability science.
“The widening of the research going on at the Lab has increased opportunities for connection with campus,” she said. “That stronger connection benefits from going through the Office of the Dean for Research.”
Leadership at PPPL
Over the past eight years, McComas has worked with University and PPPL leadership to strengthen the connections between the Lab and the campus. “PPPL is an important part of the future of the University,” McComas said. “The University is interested in advances that make a huge difference for humanity, and it has a very long view of things. That’s exactly what fusion energy needs.”
McComas is a renowned space physicist and the principal investigator on multiple NASA instruments and missions. He holds seven patents and has published more than 800 peer-reviewed papers with more than 50,000 citations. Prior to coming to Princeton, he served in a variety of leadership roles at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Southwest Research Institute.
In addition to overseeing PPPL’s research mission, he has secured two contract extensions with the DOE and led the international search that brought the renowned fusion scientist Sir Steven Cowley to PPPL as its director.
“Dave has been a steadfast partner during a period of rapid expansion at the Laboratory,” said Cowley, who is also a professor of astrophysical sciences at the University. “PPPL is tackling global issues in the nation’s interest, contributing to a sustainable future while driving scientific innovation forward. Dave’s inventive mindset, coupled with his strong organizational leadership, has been an asset to PPPL during a critical time.”
With fusion energy at an inflection point, “it’s an exciting time at PPPL,” McComas said. Unprecedented numbers of public-private partnership grants are helping to advance fusion science and engineering at the Lab, he said, adding that the growing number of private companies working in the sector indicates that investors are confident that technologies are advancing toward bringing fusion energy to the national grid.
McComas and IMAP
Several months ago, as McComas saw both of his major responsibilities — PPPL and IMAP — coming to critical points, he felt that it was time to focus his energies on the space physics to which he has devoted his academic career.
IMAP’s mission is to explore our solar neighborhood, by decoding the messages in particles captured from the Sun and from beyond our cosmic shield, the heliopause. After its launch, IMAP will provide extensive new observations of the inner and outer heliosphere and answer two of the most important topics in space physics today: how energetic particles are accelerated in the solar wind, and how the solar wind interacts with the local interstellar medium.
The roughly $750 million IMAP mission carries 10 cutting-edge scientific instruments and will launch from Cape Canaveral in 2025 on a Falcon 9 Heavy rocket. In addition to resolving fundamental scientific questions, IMAP will make real-time observations of the space environment a million miles sunward of the Earth, providing critical advance warning of impending space weather events.
In his career, McComas has led the TWINS and IBEX space physics missions as well as instruments for numerous other missions, including Parker Solar Probe to the sun, the Advanced Composition Explorer to study spaceborne energetic particles, Ulysses to view the sun from outside the ecliptic, New Horizons to and past Pluto, Juno to Jupiter, and Cassini to Saturn.
Among many other honors, he has received the Arctowski Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics of the International Science Council, and the NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Schiffer and PPPL
With an active research program in the Department of Physics in addition to his administrative roles, Schiffer is an eminent condensed matter physicist who holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and a B.S. from Yale.
Prior to coming to Princeton in 2023, he served as a member of the faculty and an administrator at Yale University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Pennsylvania State University. He currently also serves on the governing board of the American Physical Society and previously served as a senior fellow with the Association of American Universities.
Schiffer leads the Office of the Dean for Research, which supports the Princeton research enterprise by expanding access to funding and other resources, building research relationships with external partners, facilitating regulatory and policy compliance, and supporting innovation, entrepreneurship and the development of intellectual property.
He said he looks forward to continuing PPPL’s long legacy of research in the nation’s service, expanding its academic affiliation with the University and building on its importance as a regional economic hub. “Princeton has been the steward of the Lab since it was founded back in the ’50s,” Schiffer said. “It is part of the University’s scientific legacy and tradition to have PPPL as a critical part of our overall research portfolio; it provides research opportunities for undergrads, graduate students and postdocs. With its hundreds of employees and global scientific reputation, PPPL also has a big economic footprint within our community.”
He continued: “PPPL is a very important part of Princeton’s intellectual ecosystem, and we’re honored to have the opportunity to manage the Lab for the nation and support the great science that comes out of it.”