Three Ways of Thinking from Fusion Scientist Annie Kritcher

Annie Kritcher is a star physicist in the field of fusion. She was named one of Nature magazine’s ten people who mattered that year. Three ways of thinking from Annie Kritcher The first is to find complementary strengths. It is similar to the familiar idea that if you can reach the top 20% in two fields at the same time, you can place among the top 5% of the population. Anyone working in fusion research is a top scholar. There is no question that the academic side has to be strong. Annie Kritcher entered the University of Michigan’s nuclear engineering program in 2001. During her junior year, an internship brought her into contact with the U.S. National Ignition Facility. From then on, she decided to focus on fusion technology. But academic strength alone is not enough to become a chief scientist. So after formally joining the National Ignition Center in 2012, she kept looking for opportunities to lead projects and manage teams. At the same time, she worked hard to sharpen her communication skills. As a result, Annie Kritcher developed three capabilities at once: strong scientific expertise, the ability to manage projects and lead teams, and the communication skills to handle all kinds of press conferences. At this point, you can see why her chances of becoming a chief scientist were quite high. --- The second is to keep looking for hope amid pessimism. Although the United States began work on inertial-confinement fusion early, with the project launched in 1997 and the facility completed in 2009, progress was far from encouraging for a long time. It was not until 2022 that ignition was achieved for the first time. So how did Annie Kritcher and her team deal with pessimism along the way? Kritcher said that before you succeed, you may not even know what you are truly pursuing. You can only solve the problems in front of you one by one, then seek small improvements in the next experiment, the one after that, and the one after that. Throughout the process, hold on to hope, identify problems, and fix them, without letting other external circumstances distract you. “As long as you keep working steadily, your effort will not be wasted.” Put simply, no matter how bad things look, keep searching for a small point of support that can help you move forward, even by just one step. --- The third is that Annie Kritcher is especially good at communicating and quickly establishing common ground with the person she is speaking to. Controlled fusion draws on physics, engineering, computer science, materials science, chemistry, and other fields. The facility includes 7,500 large optical components, 26,000 small optical components, and more than 66,000 control points. Together, these systems form 6,200 modular units known as line-replaceable units. How high must the communication costs be for a team this large, with groups from different specialties and trades? Coordinating the work calls for strong communication skills. A Forbes reporter who interviewed Annie Kritcher found that she was exceptionally skilled at communicating. For example, how would you explain “successful ignition” to the general public? Kritcher put it this way: “What we do is bring the process that powers the Sun to Earth and harness that energy in a controlled laboratory setting. But creating a little Sun in a laboratory is extremely difficult—that is precisely what we are working to figure out.” The Forbes reporter also used grammar-analysis software to examine Kritcher’s answer and found that its most complex vocabulary was at a middle-school level. Put simply, anyone who has completed middle school could understand what she said. But when speaking with academic peers, Kritcher switches language systems immediately, bringing out technical terms such as plasma, energy density, and alpha particles. Kritcher’s ability lies in tailoring an explanation of her work to different audiences. As she said, communication is key when addressing the public. The more complex the work, the more important it is to explain it simply in order to spark public interest. Developing communication skills is also essential to building a successful career. Annie Kritcher’s habits of thought can be summed up in three practical suggestions. First, find complementary strengths by becoming top 20% in several different fields. Second, learn to find hope amid pessimism and identify a small next step. Third, stay sensitive to your audience and make sure anyone can understand what you say. ---- Robin’s younger brother: “For more on clear communication, see the previous post’s passage about Wu Jun’s training in verbal expression. We should probably take Shen Xiaobao to the Mandarin Daily News for public-speaking or storytelling classes this summer. The importance of clear expression may not be obvious at school, where attention is focused on exams, but later in life it is important to learn how to express your views clearly and fully. “Kritcher said that before you succeed, you may not even know what you are truly pursuing. You can only solve the problems in front of you one by one, then seek small improvements in the next experiment, the one after that, and the one after that. Throughout the process, hold on to hope, identify problems, and fix them, without letting other external circumstances distract you. “The same applies to entrepreneurship. Remember that the essence of an MVP is to keep it low-cost and fast, learn through trial and error, stay positive and optimistic, complain less, and do everything you can.”