Mark Bird, Director of Magnet and Science Technology at FSU’s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL), has been given a Distinguished University Scholar Award for 2009-2010.
The award recognizes non-tenure-track seeking employees who have demonstrated outstanding performance and who have longstanding track records of research at the university.
Bird has been an employee of the lab since 1992, and was part of a team that developed “Florida Bitter” technology, which has made the lab a world record holder in magnetic field strength. He has been the project leader on numerous magnet projects, including the NHMFL 45 T hybrid insert and the 25 T low resolution NMR “Keck” magnet, as well as magnets in Tsukuba, Japan; Grenoble, France; and Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Bird is an internationally recognized expert on high field magnet technology and has presented invited and plenary lectures at international conferences on magnet technology. He has also led the design and fabrication of superconducting magnets and cryostats such as the Sweeper magnet for the National Superconducting Cyclotron Lab and he worked on the cryostat for the 900 MHz NMR magnet at the NHMFL. In addition, he has developed and patented revolutionary technology for repetitively pulsed magnets and has completed the required reading for the Masters of Business Administration at Florida State University. Dr. Bird is a member of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
