10/23/2009 Colloquium - Siegfried Hecker

Siegfried Hecker Stanford University

Event Info

Title:  Nuclear Challenges in North Korea, Iran and India

Date: Oct 23, 2009
Location: 3105 Etcheverry Hall
Time: 4-5pm

Abstract

On Oct. 9, 2006 North Korea conducted a nuclear test and declared itself a nuclear power. It erased lingering doubts about its ability to field a nuclear device with a second test this May. Iran continues to develop the nuclear weapon option, while agreeing to limited international inspections and diplomatic dialogue. India signed a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States and is moving ahead with an ambitious nuclear power program. I will share my observations based on visits and discussions with the nuclear communities in these countries on how these countries challenge the nuclear nonproliferation regime.

Speaker Biography

Siegfried Hecker is a professor (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering, a senior fellow at FSI, and co-director of CISAC. He is also an emeritus director of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Hecker's research interests include plutonium science, nuclear weapon policy and international security, nuclear security (including nonproliferation and counter terrorism), and cooperative nuclear threat reduction. Over the past 15 years, he has fostered cooperation with the Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the vast stockpile of ex-Soviet fissile materials. His current interests include the challenges of nuclear India, Pakistan, North Korea, and the nuclear aspirations of Iran. Hecker works closely with the Russian Academy of Sciences and is actively involved with the U.S. National Academies, serving as a member of the National Academies Committee on International Security and Arms Control Nonproliferation Panel.

Hecker joined Los Alamos National Laboratory as graduate research assistant and postdoctoral fellow before returning as technical staff member following a tenure at General Motors Research. He led the laboratory's Materials Science and Technology Division and Center for Materials Science before serving as laboratory director from 1986 through 1997, and senior fellow until July 2005.

Among his professional distinctions, Hecker is a member of the National Academy of Engineering; a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; a fellow of the TMS, or Minerals, Metallurgy and Materials Society; a fellow of the American Society for Metals; an honorary member of the American Ceramics Society; and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His achievements have been recognized with the US Department of Energy’s Enrico Fermi Award, the American Nuclear Society's Seaborg Medal and the Alumni Association Gold Medal and the Undergraduate Distinguished Alumni Award from Case Western Reserve University, where he earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in metallurgy.