Professor Justin WarkJustin Wark is Professor of Physics in the Atomic and Laser Physics subdepartment at the University of Oxford, and has been a William Penney Fellow of AWE since 2019. With partners at AWE, he established the Oxford Centre for High Energy Density Science (OxCHEDS) in early 2013, and he remains its Principal Director.

Professor Wark's research interests are in the use of intense x-ray sources (such as the new generation of free electron lasers) to both create and diagnose matter in the high energy density regime. This work includes the study of solid-state crystalline material at extreme pressures, as might be found towards the centre of the earth, or even the giant planets. Crystalline structure can be determined via femtosecond x-ray diffraction, as can the deformation pathways that the material undergoes as it is compressed. Intense laser pulses can also be used to heat matter rapidly to millions of degrees whilst it remains solid, thus mimicking the conditions half way to the centre of the sun. He also has interests in research using high-power optical lasers aimed towards achieving inertial confinement fusion in the laboratory.

Justin Wark represents the United Kingdom on the management board of the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields (HiBEF), which is one of the end-stations at the European XFEL (X-Ray Free Electron Laser) in Hamburg. With strong links to the States, he also sits on the Peer Review Panel that provides advice on the scheduling of experiments on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is situated in California, and is the largest laser system in the world.

At the departmental level, Professor Wark teaches the third-year short-option course in Plasma Physics. In his role as Tutorial Fellow in Physics at Trinity College, he also undertakes tutorial teaching within the College environment, specialising in Solid State Physics, Atomic and Laser Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Optics and Relativity.