Game Changers for Nuclear Energy

Thursday, June 3, 2010
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
(Pacific)
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Kate Marvel is a CISAC postdoctoral fellow working on energy security and nuclear nonproliferation.  She received a PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Scholar and a member of Trinity College. She chaired Cambridge University Student Pugwash and is a member of the Executive Board of International Student/Young Pugwash. Kate holds a BA in physics and astronomy from the University of California at Berkeley and has worked at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, California, and the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in South Africa.   She is active in outreach work and has lectured in settings as diverse as a community center in Lesotho, a physics institute in Tehran, and the Secret Garden Party Festival in the UK.

Tom Isaacs serves as the Director for the Office of Planning and Special Studies at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  During his sabbatical leave he will be in residence at CISAC, focusing his research on several interconnected sets of challenges to the effective management of the worldwide expansion of nuclear energy.  He will also play an important role in a collaborative project with CISAC and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Global Nuclear Future Initiative.

Tom's career spans more than two decades with the Department of Energy including managing policies and programs on the advancement of nuclear power and issues associate with security, waste management, and public trust.  He has degrees in Engineering, Applied Physics, and Chemical Engineering from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Michael May is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000. May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the Laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971. May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards. His current research interests are in the area of nuclear and terrorism, energy, security and environment, and the relation of nuclear weapons and foreign policy.