New Theoretical Division management team named

Contact: Todd Hanson, (505) 665-2085 (99-111)

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LOS ALAMOS, N.M., July 29, 1999 - Alan Bishop has been named the new director of Los Alamos National Laboratory's Theoretical Division and Dan Strottman has been selected to serve as deputy director. Both appointments are effective August 2.

Bishop takes over for Dan Butler, who has been acting division director since January 1998. Butler will remain in the Theoretical Division as a deputy division director for a transitional period.

Announcing the team's appointment, Laboratory Director John Browne said, "these men bring a tremendous background in condensed matter, fluid dynamics and theoretical physics to the task of leadership. Each has served the Laboratory successfully in various management capacities and I look forward to working with them as they continue the division's mission of providing valuable insights into the complex phenomena facing our nation and the world."

Bishop received his Ph.D. from Cambridge University in Theoretical Solid State Physics before coming to Los Alamos in 1979 as a staff member in the Materials and Statistical Physics Theory Group. He was director of the Los Alamos/University of California collaborative research program in high-temperature superconductivity from 1988 to 1995 and most recently was the group leader for the Theoretical Division's Condensed Matter Theory Group. Bishop was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1983 and received the E.O. Lawrence Award in Materials Science in 1993.

"I am very pleased to accept this position," said Bishop. "The Division has an important mission and a diverse group of talented staff working toward that mission. I have always believed the interfaces between disciplines represent the frontiers where many of our intellectual and practical challenges lie. I have acted on this conviction during my career by cultivating joint research programs with chemists, biophysicists mathematicians and materials scientists and by organizing interdisciplinary programs."

Strottman, who earned doctoral and master's degrees in physics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, joined Los Alamos in 1978 and has worked as both a group leader and deputy division leader in the Theoretical Division. Strottman has been Chief Scientist at LANSCE since 1998. An editor of five books in theoretical nuclear physics, he has written more than 250 research publications on theoretical physics and mathematics. Strottman has been a Laboratory Fellow since 1995 and was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1984. He received the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award in 1991.

Butler joined Los Alamos in 1960 as a member of the technical staff of the Theoretical Fluid Dynamics Group and has been its leader or deputy for 25 years. He was appointed Acting Theoretical Division Director in January 1998. As a theoretical fluid dynamicist, he has collaborated in developing and applying ten different computational methods for solving transient multidimensional fluid dynamics problems. His most recent research interests are in the development and application of numerical methods for spray combustion problems.

According to Hans Ruppel, acting associate laboratory director for strategic and supporting research, "The substantial experience these men have in leading an organization that is both outstanding in fundamental research, and at the same time focused on providing support for our programmatic missions, make them ideal leaders for the Division. We rely on the Theoretical Division to balance its commitment to research at the forefront of theoretical science with its essential support of the missions of the Laboratory - especially in those areas that involve long-term goals, unusual risk, and multidisciplinary approaches. They all have a strong track record of doing exactly that - which makes them ideal for this challenging and important responsibility."

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