University of Texas
Jonathan Watkins
October 26, 1953–December 9, 2022
Jonathan George Watkins demonstrating plasma source.
University of Texas, Austin Ph.D., 1982, Supervising Professor Melvin Oakes
UT Dissertation: "RF current generation near the ion cyclotron frequency"
Jonathan joined Sandia National Labs following graduation from UT. He was assigned to work at General Atomics in San Diego, CA. There he conducted fusion experiments, publishing over 200 papers.
Jonathan was born in Austin, Texas, on October 26, 1953, to George Hall and Gloria Dickinson Watkins. George attended the University of Texas on a football scholarship, playing in the Cotton Bowl. He was part of the invasion of Iwo Jima. A foxhole buddy from Alabama gave him the name and address of Gloria. He later contacted her and they married in 1948. Both George and Gloria worked in state government. Jonathan has a sibling, Jeffrey.
Jonathan graduated from Crockett High School in Austin in 1971. He was a member of their All-Star Marching Band that was invited to the Cotton Bowl in 1970..
Crockett High School Marching Band, 1970. Jonathan Watkins, second from right on front row.
Crockett High School Marching Band, 1970. Jonathan Watkins, at left end of front row.
Jonathan appears to be in two parts of this panorama photo. A very clever prank, far exceeding the usual feat of rushing around to the other end.
Jon joined Sandia Labs in 1983 and later relocated to San Diego and where he worked at General Atomics on th eDII-D experiment.
Jon met Marcia Morales in California and they entered into a long term relationship filled with many happy memories.
Jonathan sadly died December 9, 2022 of a heart attack.
Jon’s manager, Chris Shaddix, from Sandia Labs, kindly provided the biography of Jon below, with the help of some of Jon’s close colleagues. You can see how Jon’s work expressed his commitment and passion for developing and realizing magnetic fusion energy. I have always been particularly inspired by his ingenuity and creativity. Over his career, he imagined and devised some very creative in-situ diagnostics to help the international fusion community understand the remarkably complex physics comprising the hostile environment in a tokamak.
Jonathan Watkins, a Principal Member of Technical Staff in the Plasma & Reacting Flow Science Department at Sandia/CA, passed away suddenly early in the morning of Dec. 9. Jon had worked for Sandia since 1983, after receiving his PhD in physics, specializing in plasma physics, from UT Austin. Jon’s research career was focused on developing magnetic fusion energy technology, under funding from the DOE Fusion Energy Sciences program. Early in his career at Sandia, Jon worked on the development of an RF ion source, a 1.6 MW ion beam high heat flux test facility, and diagnostics for testing of high heat flux plasma facing components. He implemented plasma-facing components and edge diagnostics at several major tokamak fusion research facilities around the world, including at Oak Ridge National Lab, Juelich (Germany), and Cadarache (France). Jon utilized infrared cameras, embedded thermocouples, custom-designed inertial and actively cooled Langmuir probes, and assorted other diagnostics to evaluate the performance of the delivered components and improve the tokamak performance. In 1990, as part of a team of national lab researchers deploying capabilities to the premier tokamak research facility in the US, Jon designed and installed a fast reciprocating Langmuir probe at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego.
Jon subsequently relocated to San Diego, where he used his reciprocating probe to work on scrape-off layer physics issues including turbulent transport and boundary physics. Jon spent the remainder of his career working at the DIII-D facility, developing and deploying new diagnostics as part of the boundary physics program, working as part of the DIII-D team and with his Sandia colleagues in fusion materials research at both the Livermore and Albuquerque sites.
Jon’s ingenious Langmuir probe designs have been copied and used on many other tokamaks around the world. During the course of his career, he mentored five postdocs and several undergraduate interns, and informally mentored numerous graduate researchers conducting research at DIII-D. The value of his work to the fusion energy research community is manifest in the vast number of journal publications (over 200) that he has co-authored over the years, in addition to the tremendous respect that he commanded among his colleagues for his technical opinions and recommendations.
Jonathan was born in Austin, Texas, on October 26, 1953, to George Hall and Gloria Dickinson Watkins. George attended the University of Texas on a football scholarship, playing in the Cotton Bowl. He was part of the invasion of Iwo Jima. A foxhole buddy from Alabama gave him the name and address of Gloria. He later contacted her and they married in 1948. Both George and Gloria worked in state government. Jonathan has a sibling, Jeffrey.
