Adam Rutkowski
Adam Rutkowski joins Breakthrough Energy’s Innovator Fellows program from Marathon Fusion in San Francisco, California. Adam is a physicist and engineer with experience in thermal/fluids engineering at Otherlab and SpaceX. As chief technology officer of Marathon Fusion, Adam is responsible for guiding research and the development of fusion-enabling technologies.
Marathon Fusion is taking the critical next step to commercialize a fuel processing component essential for fusion power plants. Compared to conventional technologies, Marathon’s approach enables a dramatic reduction in tritium inventory fuel processing cost while easing engineering requirements on other critical systems. This solution is simple, robust and highly scalable to meet the challenges of commercial fusion.
Influenced by a love of the outdoors and a desire to preserve the natural world, Adam has a deep interest in energy technologies and a drive to implement solutions to climate change. He completed his Bachelor of Arts in physics at Carleton College and his Master of Arts in astrophysical sciences at Princeton University.
Q&A
What beliefs drive you?
Energy is one of the truly fundamental tools that we have to shape the world and improve quality of life. Enabling access to abundant energy and figuring out how to responsibly use it are two challenges that we face as a species.
What is your favorite word and why?
Resonate: it describes a wide range of important physical phenomena as well as capturing a very human experience of connection.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a researcher and an inventor. It’s incredibly satisfying to develop a deep understanding of the way things work and equally satisfying to know that you can then use this knowledge in a practical way to shape the world.
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