Harold Paul Furth (January 13, 1930 – February 21, 2002) was an Austrian-American physicist who was a pioneer in leading the American efforts to harness thermonuclear fusion for the generation of electricity.

His father fled a POW camp during WWI, but returned to Vienna a few years later.

After studying at the French-speaking École Internationale in Geneva, Harold immigrated to New York City in 1941.

His PhD thesis is entitled Magnetic Analysis of K– Interactions in Emulsion Nuclei.

[6] Furth worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 1956 to 1967 before going in 1967 to Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL)[5] where he would spend the rest of his career working in plasma physics and nuclear fusion.