Paul Murray Bellan (born April 18th, 1948) is a Canadian-American physicist. He is a professor of Applied Physics at the Caltech, known for his contributions to experimental plasma physics, magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), and laboratory astrophysics. He is the author of the textbook Fundamentals of Plasma Physics.

Paul Bellan grew up in Winnipeg, Canada. His father, Ruben Bellan, was a professor of economics. ^[1] Paul was interested in electrical engineering from an early age, building and operating ham radio systems. He pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of Manitoba, earning a Bachelor of Science with honors in 1970.^[2]

Paul Bellan pursued his graduate studies in plasma physics at Princeton University, where he met his wife, now-prominent aerospace engineer Josette Bellan. He earned his Master of Arts in 1972 and his Ph.D. in 1976. His doctoral research, under the guidance of his advisor, Miklos Porkolab, focused on the behavior of periodic antennas and their characterization as phased arrays with well-defined wave vectors. This work was widely recognized in his field, especially by physicist Roy W. Gould, who hired him as an assistant professor at Caltech in 1977.^{[citation needed]}

Prof. Bellan has served as faculty of the department of Applied Physics and Materials Science at Caltech for several decades and has supervised numerous graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.^[3][4]

Bellan’s research focuses on the fundamentals of plasma physics through laboratory experiments, analytical models, and numerical simulations. He has contributed to the foundations of magnetized plasmas, most notably in spheromak formation through Taylor state relaxation.^{[citation needed]} He is also involved in plasma laboratory astrophysics, performing foundational experiments that model phenomena such as astrophysical jets,^[5][6] and the weakly-ionized interstellar medium.

His work has contributed to a deeper understanding of fundamental plasma processes, including magnetic reconnection, ionospheric dusty plasmas,^[7], x-ray production, and the role of MHD waves in plasma confinement and transport.

He has received various awards for his contributions to plasma physics, including being appointed a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 1991, and winning the Writing Award from the American Institute of Physics in 2001.^[8] He has also been an invited speaker at numerous international conferences and workshops.^{[citation needed]}

• Biography at caltech.edu
• Research website of the Bellan Plasma Group