Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory



Andrew MacKinnon

Leader, the High Energy Density Science and Technology

National Diagnostics Program Leader

Andrew MacKinnon is the leader of the High Energy Density Science and Technology (HED S&T) organization within the HED & Photon Systems (HED&PS) program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) National Ignition Facility & Photon Science (NIF&PS) Directorate. HED S&T provides expert personnel to enable HED experiments on NIF and other HED facilities in support of the Stockpile Stewardship Program, National Security Applications, and Discovery Science efforts. HED S&T also partners with the Advanced Photon Technologies (APT) organization under HED&PS and plays a critical role in developing new HED experimental system capabilities.

MacKinnon additionally serves as the co-leader of LLNL’s Joint High Energy Density Science (JHEDS) organization, which is a joint venture between the Physical and Life Sciences and NIF&PS directorates that supports experiments on NIF, Omega, and other high energy density facilities. MacKinnon also serves as section leader for implosion science within JHEDS and is the scientific leader for the NIF&PS Target Area Science and Engineering section (TASE).

MacKinnon came to LLNL in 1999 as an experimental physicist, studying the production and application of laser-driven MeV ions and the creation of high energy density plasmas by laser and x-ray driven implosions. In 2005, he was appointed as a group leader specializing in short pulse high intensity experiments. Between 2005 and 2010, he helped to develop optical diagnostics for NIF and the Omega laser system at the Laboratory of Laser Energetics (LLE) of the University of Rochester in New York. He was a campaign leader on NIF’s inertial confinement fusion (ICF) program, including the first cryogenic layered DT experiments that used precisely shocked timed-laser pulse shapes. He also led the first campaign to use high density carbon ablators (HDC) at NIF.

In 2015, MacKinnon left LLNL to take on a leadership role at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory as the department head for the Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) end station at SLAC’s LINAC Coherent Light Source (LCLS). This facility supported high energy density experiments using high power optical lasers and extremely bright x-ray lasers. He returned to LLNL in 2017 as section leader in HED S&T.

In 2017, MacKinnon was one of six researchers awarded the American Physical Society (APS) John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research for his work developing laser driven proton radiography. He was elected as an APS Fellow in 2008. He was also awarded a visiting research fellowship at Queen’s University Belfast from 2003 to 2005 and was a visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, from 2011 to 2013.

MacKinnon received his B.Sc. in physics with laser science from Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, in 1988. From 1989 to 1991, he was a scientific officer for the United Kingdom’s Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), working on the development of high power ND: Glass lasers. In 1991, MacKinnon joined the plasma physics group at Imperial College London to study high power laser plasma interactions and was awarded his Ph.D. in plasma physics from Imperial College in 1996. From 1996 to 1999, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College, studying relativistic self-focusing and magnetic field generation in laser produced plasmas using the Vulcan laser at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory's Central Laser Facility.