Richard J. Temkin  Richard J. Temkin (born 8 January 1945) is a plasma physicist and researcher on plasma-heating gyrotrons and other electromagnetic devices involving high-powered microwaves or terahertz radiation. Temkin received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1966 and a Ph.D.from MIT in 1971, supervised by Benjamin Lax and Paul M. Raccah with thesis "Experimental charge density of copper". Temkin has served as a Senior Research Scientist in the MIT Physics Department since 1985, and as the Associate Director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) since 1998. He is also the Division Head for the PSFC's Waves and Beams Division. Awards received include the IEEE Plasma Science and Applications Award (2013); Exceptional Service Award of the International Society of Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (2011); the Robert L. Woods Award of the U. S. Department of Defense for Vacuum Electronics, the Certificate of Recognition from the IEEE Electron Device Society, and the Kenneth J. Button Prize and Medal from the Institute of Physics. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, IEEE, and the Institute of Physics.