PPPL, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and managed by Princeton University, is a collaborative national center for science and innovation leading to an attractive fusion energy source. When Goldston became PPPL Director, he initiated a reorganization of the Laboratory to encourage the development of more non-fusion related research and technology with more applications to industry.
The FLC, organized in 1974 to promote and facilitate the rapid movement of federal laboratory research results and technologies into the mainstream U.S. economy, includes more than 700 major federal labs and centers and their parent departments and agencies as members. PPPL is an FLC member lab.
Goldston came to PPPL as a graduate student in 1972 after receiving his bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard University. He served as a research assistant at the Lab for five years and earned his Ph.D. in astrophysics, Program in Plasma Physics, from Princeton University in 1977. He was named professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University in 1992, a position he continues to hold, and Associate Director for Research at PPPL in 1995. In 1997, he became the Laboratory's fifth Director. Goldston is the author and coauthor of more than 200 scholarly articles, and is coauthor with Paul Rutherford of the textbook, Introduction to Plasma Physics.