Marcus D. Knudson
Dr. Marcus D. Knudson is a Senior Scientist at Sandia National Laboratories and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Knudson received his Ph.D. in Physics from Washington State University in 1998, and immediately joined the Dynamic Material Properties group at Sandia National Laboratories. His career at Sandia includes research in high-energy density physics, and material dynamics under extreme pressure and temperature.
At Sandia, Knudson led a team in developing a novel flyer plate capability using a magnetic loading technique. He applied this technique to several important scientific and programmatic problems, most notably the high-pressure response of hydrogen and its isotopes, the melting of beryllium and carbon on the Hugoniot, the high-pressure response of water at planetary relevant conditions, and defining the Hugoniot and release response of quartz for use as a high-precision standard in the multi-Mbar pressure regime. Using a shock-ramp technique, Knudson and his team experimentally observed a liquid-liquid, metal-to-insulator transition in hydrogen at low temperature and high density.
He currently acts as the Sandia POC for the Stewardship Science Academic Alliances Program and oversees the Z Fundamental Science Program.