Kasia Mendelsohn, Principal Assistant Deputy Administrator for the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (DNN) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA).

Kasia Mendelsohn is Principal Assistant Deputy Administrator for the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (DNN) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA). Ms. Mendelsohn previously served as the Acting Deputy Administrator and Policy Director for DNN and as the Assistant Deputy Administrator for Nonproliferation and Arms Control (NPAC). 

Ms. Mendelsohn has served in several other capacities at DOE/NNSA, including as the Associate Assistant Deputy Administrator for NPAC, Director of NPAC Policy, Director of the NPAC Office of Nuclear Safeguards, Director of the Office of Global Nuclear Material Threat Reduction within the Office of Global Threat Reduction, Deputy Director for the Global Regimes/Regional Security and the Nonproliferation Policy program in the Office of Nonproliferation Policy, and as DOE/NNSA’s representative to the U.S. Biological Weapons Convention protocol negotiations. Prior to joining DOE/NNSA in 1999, Ms. Mendelsohn worked as a defense contractor for DynCorp.

Much of Ms. Mendelsohn’s career has focused on addressing urgent national security issues, including countering the growth of plutonium and highly enriched uranium stockpiles, strengthening multilateral nonproliferation treaties and agreements, and enhancing international nuclear safeguards and security of nuclear materials and facilities worldwide. 

Ms. Mendelsohn holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Barnard College and a master’s degree in international security policy from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. 

Dr. Robert Floyd, Executive Director, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, Vienna, Austria

Jean du Preez, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey

Jean du Preez directs the CNS Education and Training program. As such he manages the CNS International Visiting Fellows Program and various other nonproliferation education and outreach activities, including regional short courses for diplomats and women in STEM, internships at international nonproliferation organizations. His research interests include the NPT, the legacy of nuclear testing and future of the CTBT, a future FMCT, the role of the Non-Aligned Movement, and the role of multilateral organizations in nonproliferation, arms control and disarmament. He is also a member of the International Panel of Fissile Material (IPFM).

Sharon Squassoni, George Washington University, Elliott School of International Affairs

Sharon Squassoni's research, writing and policy-making has focused on reducing risks from nuclear energy and weapons for three decades. She has held senior positions at the State Department, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the Congressional Research Service, as well as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Center for Strategic & International Studies. She is on the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the PIR Center, the Wisconsin Project and the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. She is co-founder of the Climate-Security Initiative.

Susan Pepper is the Chair of the Nonproliferation & National Security Department (NNS). NNS carries out research and development of radiation detectors, provides technical support and training to international organizations and other countries, builds prototype systems, and provides expert radiological assistance to further U.S. government initiatives and policies in nuclear materials safeguards and security, arms control treaty verification, nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, material protection, control and accountability initiatives for nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, and related national security areas.

After living in Vienna for four years, she returned to Brookhaven to head the International Safeguards Project Office (ISPO), a position she held for more than a decade. In this capacity, Pepper worked extensively with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to provide its Department of Safeguards with the tools it needs to track nuclear material under the terms of the Nonproliferation Treaty. She is credited with creating an internship program in the IAEA Department of Safeguards to recruit students or recent graduates to work side by side with more senior staff.  
 
Pepper continued to manage ISPO until being named deputy department chair in September 2010, and then interim chair in January 2015.

Dr. Alicia Swift is Director of the Nonproliferation and Arms Control research group at Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC (CNS), which manages Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas. Based at Y-12, Alicia manages and contributes to research projects at Y-12 and Pantex on international nuclear safeguards, nuclear export controls, nonproliferation policy, and arms control / treaty verification. From 2012 to 2013, Alicia served as a Nonproliferation Graduate Fellow within the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) former Office of Global Threat Reduction. Alicia serves as Chair of the Nonproliferation and Arms Control Technical Division of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management and as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Nuclear Materials Management. Alicia is also a board member of the American Museum of Science and Energy. Alicia is a recipient of the 2023 University of Tennessee’s “40 under 40” award, and has received two NNSA Awards of Excellence from the Office of Defense Programs. Alicia received her MS and PhD in nuclear engineering from the University of Tennessee, and her BS in nuclear engineering from the University of Florida.

Jack Jekowski is recently retired from a 56-year career supporting the U.S. nuclear program, including 27 years with Edgerton, Germeshausen and Grier, Inc. (EG&G) in Boston, Los Alamos, Albuquerque and the Nevada National Security Site (formerly NTS), and 6 years with Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies (FM&T, the Kansas City Plant).  For the last 23 years of his career he was a founding Partner and owner of a national security consulting/support services company, Innovative Technology Partnerships, LLC (ITP), with contracts across the DOE/NNSA, National Labs, and other Nuclear Security Enterprise contractors. One of Jack's areas of expertise is the use of scenario planning tools to stimulate strategic discussions about uncertain futures. Jack is a Fellow with the INMM and a member since 1988. He is currently serving as the Institute's Historian.

Alan Carr, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Robert Franklin, Hanford History Project

Robert Franklin is an Assistant Professor of History at Washington State University Tri-Cities and the Assistant Director and Archivist of the Hanford History Project at WSU Tri-Cities.  The Hanford History Project proudly manages the Department of Energy’s Hanford Collection, an archive, artifact, archaeological, and oral history collection focused on the WWII and Cold War history of the Hanford Site.  Robert, along with Robert Bauman, has co-authored and co-edited two volumes in the Hanford Histories Series by WSU Press.  The first volume of that series, Nowhere to Remember: Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland to 1943 was released in 2018 by WSU Press, and the third volume, Echoes of Exclusion and Resistance: Voices from the Hanford Region, was released in 2020. 

Elizabeth Krispin, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Elizabeth is a Geological Engineer, who, in the early 1990’s began working for Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), in Oak Ridge, TN.  During her first 15-years at ORNL she supported the lab’s Environmental Program, serving as the Technical Project Officer responsible for managing the Melton Valley Record of Decision (ROD).  This CERCLA Decision Document, the Melton Valley ROD, constituted one of the largest decision documents on record, covering over 1000-acres of land and codified remedial decisions for in excess of 200 individual contaminated sites. After the signature of the ROD and managing remediations for several individual sites, she transferred into the Nuclear Nonproliferation Program and spent 5-years supporting National Security Missions.  Elizabeth is currently affiliated with the Facilities Strategic Planning Group within the Facilities & Operations Organization. Here she manages the Site Use and Planning Committee and supports ORNL’s Historic Preservation efforts, enabling ORNL campus modernization co-incident with the retention of ORNL’s important historical legacy.

Ray Smith, Y-12 National Security Complex

Ray Smith is the historian at the Y-12 National Security Complex. His specific focus is the history of Oak Ridge, and he is intimately acquainted with the uranium enrichment processes undertaken at the Y-12, K-25, and S-50 plants during the Manhattan Project, and how the Fat Man and Little Boy bombs worked.

Tom Ramos, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Rebecca Ulrich, Sandia National Laboratories

LINKS SHARED DURING THE WEBINAR

The webinar recording can be found on INMM's YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@INMMHQ/videos

INMM’s History website: https://inmm.org/page/history

Links related to the Ray Smith/Elizabeth Krispin presentation (Y-12/Oak Ridge)

Graphite Reactor - https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bbczwx9jc4jx2r9qs86en/move-cam-01.mp4?rlkey=9gb5b8jqk059tonq6oyli7814&dl=0
Virtual Tours Science Areas - https://map.ornl.org/#%21UMAP_2015061042440
Decades of Discovery - https://www.ornl.gov/content/decades-of-discovery
Oak Ridge and Y-12 National Security Complex Documentary films - https://www.y12.doe.gov/about/history/video-gallery
Ed Westcott - Photographer Documentary film - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U0O_07swEY
Building 9204-3 (Beta 3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpxjZofkurY&t=119s
Building 9731: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j9DYVnAYzc&t=103s