I work as an engineer on a university stellarator. I’m not close to plasma physics, which is fine since I’m good at what I do and what I do (data acquisition)

I work as an engineer on a university stellarator. I’m not close to plasma physics, which is fine since I’m good at what I do and what I do (data acquisition) is necessary. There are lots of fields that are not plasma physics that are needed to have actual experiments made and operated. If you want to break into research: hit the books yesterday. You’ll need to be able to speak the lingo and know what machines around the world are doing. This might be difficult outside of an academic setting, but a life in academia is a tough pill to swallow. I’m not the right person to give you a list of literature, but “Plasma Physics and Fusion Energy” by Friedberg is considered the go-to book in my group. Also, regardless of whether or not you make a big life change, I highly recommend that you read “The Future of Fusion Energy” by Parisi and Ball. It is just the right level of technical to give understanding to the problem but not so technical that someone without a plasma physics background will be lost.