Peter Hagelstein
Associate professor of electrical engineering
areas of expertise: electrical engineering, thermal to electric conversion, thermal diodes, transport modeling, metal deuterides, cold fusion, x-ray lasers, applied quantum and statistical mechanics
Peter L. Hagelstein is a principal investigator in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT. He received an SB and SM in 1976, and a PhD in electrical engineering in 1981, from MIT. He was a staff member of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 1981 to 1985 before joining the MIT faculty in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1986.
Hagelstein's early work focused on EUV and soft X-ray lasers, relativistic atomic structure and electron collisional physics, ionic autoionization and dielectronic recombination processes, plasma population kinetics, radiation transport and large scale physics simulation. He received the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award in 1984 for his innovation and creativity in X-ray laser physics.
His recent efforts have included the invention of semiconductor technology that could allow efficient, affordable production of electricity from a variety of energy sources, as well as continuing investigations of low-energy nuclear reactions. Hagelstein is the co-author of a new textbook, Introductory Applied Quantum and Statistical Mechanics, and chaired the Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion in 2003.
request an interview: Sarah McDonnell | 617-253-8923 | s_mcd@mit.edu