Dr. Harris received the B.S. degree in physics from Duke University in 2000, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland in 2002 and 2005.

Between 2005 and 2009, Dr. Harris worked with the Accelerator Design and Code Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and from 2009 to 2012 he was Research Assistant Professor of Physics at the Naval Postgraduate School.  Dr. Harris' professional interests span the production, transport, acceleration, and use of charged particle beams, as well as high voltage, pulsed power, and directed energy systems.

Dr. Harris has authored and co-authored more then 60 technical articles and abstracts. Most recently, he has been awknowledged with the Science and Technology Recognition Award, and with the Engineering Dictorate Silver Award.

Several examples of these publications are listed as followed:

• J.R. Harris, A.I. Yilmaz, and D.D. Snyder, “Expansion of a Surface Flashover Plasma“, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science 41, 3624 (2013)
• J.R. Harris, J.W. Lewellen, and B.R. Poole, “Transport of Electron Beams with Initial Transverse-Longitudinal Correlation“, Journal of Applied Physics 114, 063304 (2013).
• B.R. Poole and J.R. Harris, “Linear Permittivity Tapering in a Cerenkov Microwave Source with a Pre-bunched Beam“,Physics of Plasmas 20, 043108 (2013).
• J. Edelen, S. Biedron, J. Harris, S.V. Milton, J. Lewellen, “A Two-Frequency Gun for High Current Thermionic Cathode Electron Injector Systems, in Proceedings of the 2013 North American Particle Accelerator Conference“, 29 September - 4 October, Pasadena, CA.
• J.R. Harris, A. Kara, C.W. Bennett, M. Galt, A.D. Holmes, R.L. Swent, J.W. Lewellen, and J. Sears, “Temperature Dependence of Photoemission from Copper and Niobium, in Proceedings of the 2013 North American Particle Accelerator Conference“, 29 September - 4 October, Pasadena, CA.
• B.R. Poole, J.R. Harris, and S.V. Milton, “Photonic Crystal as a Passively Driven Structure to Boost Beam Energy, in Proceedings of the 2013 North American Particle Accelerator Conference“, 29 September - 4 October, Pasadena, CA.
• J.E. Williams, S. Biedron, J.R. Harris, S. Milton, S.V. Benson, D. Douglas, P. Evtushenko, G.R. Neil, C. Tennant, and S. Zhang, “Non-invasive Detection and Characterization of Beams, in Proceedings of the 2013 North American Particle Accelerator Conference“, 29 September - 4 October, Pasadena, CA.
• S. Milton, S. Biedron, J. Harris, J. Martinez, A. D'Audney, J. Edelen, C. Hall, K. Horovitz, A. Morin, L. Rand, N. Sipahi, T. Sipahi, J. Williams, S. Medicine Bear, C. Carrico, N. Moin, J. Van Keuren, P.J.M. van der Slot, A. Bos, A. Dong, L. Kang, K. Kenny, and J. Smith, “Status of the CSU Accelerator and FEL Facility“, in Proceedings of the 2013 Advanced High-Power Lasers Conference, Santa Fe, NM, 24-27 June 2013.