Larry Bernard, a veteran writer and PR pro in the healthcare and science fields, has taken the communications reins for the US Dept. of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
Bernard, who took up the director of comms. post on Dec. 15, had been consulting for the past year since leaving a senior PR role with the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation in Cambridge.
The Princeton facilty, based in Plainsboro, N.J., recently completed the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade, a major fusion facility that launches an extensive research program. "Communicating its findings and those of our other cutting-edge programs will broaden and deepen awareness of the laboratory," said lab director Stewart Prager.
The lab, spawned from a government program to control thermonuclear reactions during the Cold War dubbed Project Matterhorn, is managed by Princeton Univ. for the Dept. of Energy.
Bernard previously worked in the drug and healthcare field, serving as senior comms. manager at Pfizer and Amgen. He also directed public affairs at the Schepens Eye Research Institute at Harvard Medical School and was a PR writer for Cornell University.
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