Robert Ellis (physicist)

Robert Anderson Ellis Jr. (1927 – 15 December 1989) was an American physicist and head of experimental projects at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

[3] After completing his PhD, Ellis returned to his instructor position at Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State College, where he was later promoted to full professor.

[1] In 1954, he was invited as one of 73 "outstanding physicists" to take part in the Cosmic Ray Conference, sponsored by Duke University and the National Science Foundation.

[2] The same year, he joined a research team with James Van Allen and Melvin B. Gottlieb that traveled to the Arctic to investigate cosmic ray activity in the polar region.

[6][7] In 1969, Ellis spent six months at the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Novosibirsk, USSR, with a focus on fostering international collaboration in the sciences.

During his career, Ellis was a member of the Department of Energy's Compact Toroid Coordination Committee, in which he and Japanese plasma physicist Masaaki Yamada led the Spheromak project.