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Colleagues pay tribute to Robert Aymar

16 Dec 2024

The physicists and engineers who worked with him, some as early as the late 1960s, gathered at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commision’s Cadarache site (CEA-Cadarache) last week to pay a tribute to Robert Aymar (1936-2024), the physicist who pioneered French fusion research and later headed the ITER project for 10 years (1993-2003).

From left to right: Jean Jacquinot, former director of JET and of the CEA's Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (IRFM); Bernard Turck, Tore Supra superconducting magnet specialist; Robert Aymar’s daughters Dominique and Françoise; Michel Bedoucha, Director of CEA-Marcoule; Jérôme Bucalossi, Director of IRFM; and André Grosman, former Deputy-Director of IRFM.

Jean Jacquinot, who joined CEA’s embryonic fusion department in 1961 and played a key role in the ITER negotiations four decades later, remembered the “leader” who fought to reorganize French fusion research in the wake of the “May 68” movement, when authorities and the “old world” were challenged throughout Europe. 

ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi, who worked alongside Aymar during the Engineering Design Activities in the following decade praised his “empathy,” “honesty,” and “skill” in managing stakeholders.

Jacquinot, Barabaschi and a few others who had worked with Aymar in different circumstances acknowledged him as a mentor and an enduring inspiration.

In 1977, Aymar initiated the Tore Supra project at CEA-Cadarache and headed it through construction and early operation (1988). A symbol, under the name WEST, of international fusion cooperation, the device has been equipped with a tungsten divertor and now acts as a major test bed for ITER. 

The lobby at the entrance of the building that hosts WEST will from now on bear Robert Aymar’s name.

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