Steven Cowley, a theoretical physicist and international authority on fusion energy, became the seventh Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) on July 1, 2018, and a Princeton professor of astrophysical sciences on September 1, 2018. Most recently president of Corpus Christi College and professor of physics at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom since 2016, Cowley previously was chief executive officer of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and head of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. He earned his doctorate at Princeton University in astrophysical sciences in 1985 and was a staff scientist at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory from 1987 to 1993. From 2011 to 2017 he was a member of the UK prime-minister's Council on Science and Technology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering and, was knighted by the Queen of England in June 2018.