Jutta E. Escher is a theoretical nuclear physicist whose research concerns the calculation of cross sections of nuclear reactions, with applications including astrophysics, nuclear power, radiochemistry, and national security, [1] including in particular "indirect measurements of neutron-induced reactions". [2] Originally from Germany, and educated in Germany and the United States, she has worked in Israel, Canada, and the United States, where she is a staff scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. [1]
In Germany, Escher was a student at the Kant-Gymnasium Boppard and at the University of Bonn, where she received a vordiplom in 1988. [3] She became a graduate student of physics at Louisiana State University, supported by a Fulbright Scholarship, where she received a master's degree in 1993 and completed her Ph.D. in 1997. [1] Her dissertation was Electron scattering studies in the framework of the symplectic shell model. [3]
After postdoctoral research in Israel, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and in Canada, at the TRIUMF national particle accelerator center, she joined the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2002, [2] in its Physical and Life Sciences Directorate. [4]
Escher was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2019, "for developing the theoretical framework required to validate the surrogate reaction method for neutron-induced reactions and for leading the applications of these methods to address important questions in nuclear astrophysics and stewardship science". [2] [4]