The virtual seminar will be held from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. (E.T.)
The National Nuclear Security Administration is the part of the U.S. Department of Energy that designs, builds, maintains, assesses, and modernizes the nuclear weapon stockpile. This presentation will survey the technical and management challenges of the current charge to the National Nuclear Security Administration to modernize this stockpile at a faster pace than imagined even a decade ago, including being prepared to design new nuclear weapons. It will provide a status report on current programs, which include re-establishing the capability to make plutonium cores (pits), processing highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, and other science and production priorities.
About the speaker: Jill Hruby was the Under Secretary for Nuclear Security in the Department of Energy and the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration from July 2021 to January 2024. She spent most of her career prior to that at Sandia National Laboratories, retiring as the Laboratories Director in 2017. A mechanical engineer by training, she is currently serving on the Boards of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Atomic Weapons Establishment in the United Kingdom, as well as the Anthropic National Security Advisory Committee. She is active with the National Academies Committee on International Security and Arms Control, The Bulletin of the American Scientists, and other non-profits.