9/16/2025 Bill Bell for Illinois Physics
A $4.7 million gift from Dr. Paul Parks, an alumnus and renowned fusion energy theorist, will fund instruments and equipment for ‘bold, high-risk, high-reward science.’
Written by Bill Bell for Illinois Physics
The Department of Physics celebrated a $4.7 million bequest from a three-time alumnus, Dr. Paul Parks, with a memorial symposium in his honor on August 29. The gift established the Dr. Paul Parks Instrumentation Support Fund, which will be used to purchase equipment, instruments, and tools crucial to the success of departmental faculty members’ research.
The gift will amplify the “freedom of our experimental faculty to pursue bold, high-risk, high-reward science, giving them the means to probe the universe in ways that were previously unimaginable,” said Department Head and Professor Vidya Madhavan. “It ensures that Illinois remains at the forefront of discovery and the future vitality of our unmatched department.”
Parks was born in Oak Park, Illinois, and studied at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign from 1968 to 1977.
According to his siblings Pat, Richard, and Robert, Parks was irrepressible—a state champion in the high jump, a crack snow skier and hockey player, and a driven research scientist. They spoke fondly of their “very competitive, very talented” brother. But the family was not so fond of the stench periodically wafting from the basement that Parks converted to a laboratory in his youth. The cloud chamber that he constructed in that lab, however, did earn him a science fair win.
“The smells that emanated, I cannot describe,” said Richard Parks. “For someone in junior high to come up with that is pretty amazing—we didn’t have YouTube in those days. But when he came to Illinois, you gave him the tools to work with.”
Extraordinary, productive career
After completing his PhD, Parks went straight to General Atomics, an energy and defense contractor. He spent his 45-year career there and passed away in 2022. His work, including his doctoral thesis, focused on plasma physics and addressing global energy challenges through nuclear power that does not produce dangerous waste.
The Physics Department’s former head, Professor Matthias Grosse Perdekamp, gave the audience a tour of that “extraordinarily productive career,” reflected in Parks’ 458 published scientific papers and technical reports and more than 8,000 citations of his work. Perdekamp took the group from Parks’ doctoral thesis to papers from just last year that cover the world’s premier fusion energy research facility, ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), in France.
“Two years after his passing, new papers bearing his name are still being published…a testament to the reach of his work and his reputation in the field,” Madhavan said.
“ITER is a life’s dream for Paul and thousands of other scientists, a multigenerational dream of providing abundant, reliable energy for humanity,” Grosse Perdecamp said. “His work will be used for generations to come by those who are bringing us fusion power.”
Inseparably linked to discoveries
The impact of the Parks Instrumentation Support Fund will “empower our faculty and students to take risks. Illinois will not only continue to lead, but the entire field of physics will benefit. This is Dr. Parks’ legacy. He will be inseparably linked to the discoveries,” Madhavan said.
Professor Benjamin Hooberman and his team are already driving those discoveries. Collaborating with Occidental College, they are simulating and building new detectors for a technique known as muon tomography. Tomography, like other imaging techniques, renders 3D representations of things that are otherwise invisible to the eye. Think of an X-ray or MRI.
Hooberman’s muon tomography technique relies on the particles created as cosmic rays enter the Earth’s atmosphere. When muons hit scintillators in the team’s device, the particles trigger the emission of visible light that can be read by a simple, inexpensive photo detector. This approach is of particular interest to mining companies because it can be used to identify deposits of valuable minerals like lithium, cobalt, and copper. These minerals are central to the electronics industry and its impact on environmental sustainability, as they are used in everything from next-generation batteries to electric propulsion.
Ten of these prototype detectors are being built and tested by the Hooberman lab, supported by the Parks Instrumentation Support Fund.
“This is a novel approach [for industry,] and it is an excellent project to train students on detector hardware, electronics, and analysis,” said Illinois Physics Professor Caroline Riedl, who described the project. She pointed out, students in the Illinois Physics Master of Engineering in Instrumentation and Applied Physics program also learn these muon tomography techniques as part of their course work.
To close the symposium, Professor Mohan Sankaran of the Department of Nuclear, Plasma & Radiological Engineering, gave an overview of the extensive plasma and fusion research that the University of Illinois continues to lead and that was Parks’ passion. Illinois Physics Professor Brian DeMarco also described the university’s leading-edge research in quantum computing and the new Illinois Quantum & Microelectronics Park being constructed on the south side of Chicago.
“My brother was a competitor. He spent his entire life in a relay race,” said Robert Parks, a civil litigator in San Diego. “He came here to Illinois, and he got the baton. He went to California and ran an incredible second and third leg. He now hands that baton off to you for the fourth leg. Take this gift and make the school better, make your degrees more powerful. We’re going to cross the finish line and crack nuclear fusion safely. The bottom line is: Tag, you’re it.”