Matthew McKinzie is a visiting researcher from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), where he directs nuclear policy work and assists with management of the Climate and Clean Energy Program. NRDC was founded in 1970 and its Nuclear Program was a key part of the citizen-scientist diplomacy that helped to bring about a peaceful end to the Cold War, contributed to a halt in U.S. nuclear testing, and worked to impede U.S. separation of plutonium for both military and civil purposes. Before NRDC, McKinzie was a Postdoctoral Associate with the Peace Studies Program at the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Cornell University. He is an Associate Editor of Science & Global Security. He has a PhD in experimental nuclear physics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Research Interests
Matthew's research interests have featured modeling and simulation of nuclear conflict, beginning with a 2001 study co-authored with Thomas B. Cochran (The US Nuclear War Plan: A Time for Change). Subsequent collaborative projects applied modeling of nuclear conflict to scenarios of nuclear arms reduction in the context of missile defense and taking nuclear warheads off of high alert (Chinese Nuclear Forces and US Nuclear War Planning; Smaller and Safer: A New Plan for Nuclear Postures; and 100 Nuclear Wars.) Matthew’s other research interests have included the use of publicly available, high-resolution satellite imagery for information-gathering relevant to military and human rights issues; detecting the smuggling of nuclear-weapons material, and citizen science applied to radiation monitoring.
Matthew's work at NRDC centers on the intrinsic link between the use of nuclear power for electricity production and for the creation of nuclear weapons -- representing the greatest danger from scaling up nuclear to address climate change. Matthew has testified before Congress and debated on the future of nuclear energy.
Matthew's research at Princeton will focus on disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and quantum computing and on achieving a world free of nuclear weapons including through the 2017 United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Publications
Owen B. Toon, Charles G. Bardeen, Alan Robock, Lili Xia, Hans Kristensen, Matthew G. McKinzie, R. J. Peterson, Cheryl S. Harrison, Nicole S. Lovenduski, and Richard P. Turco, Rapidly Expanding Nuclear Arsenals in Pakistan and India Portend Regional and Global Catastrophe, Science Advances, 5 (10), 2019.
Jungmin Kang, Bemnet Alemayehu, Matthew G. McKinzie, and Michael Schoeppner, An Analysis of a Hypothetical Release of Cesium-137 from a Spent Fuel Pool Fire at Kori-3 in South Korea, Transactions, 117 (1), 2017.
B. Alemayehu, M. G. Mckinzie, T. Cochran, D. Sythe, R. Randrup, and E. Lafargue, Citizen-based Environmental Radiation Monitoring Network, Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 314 (2), 2017.
Hans M. Kristensen, Matthew G. McKinzie, and Theodore A. Postol, How US Nuclear Force Modernization Is Undermining Strategic Stability: The Burst-Height Compensating Super-Fuze, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2017.
Hans M. Kristensen and Matthew G. McKinzie, Nuclear Arsenals: Current developments, Trends and Capabilities, International Review of the Red Cross, 97 (899), 2015.
Hans M. Kristensen, Matthew G. McKinzie, and Institute for Disarmament Research, Reducing Alert Rates of Nuclear Weapons, United Nations, 2012.
Geoffrey H. Fettus and Matthew G. McKinzie, Nuclear Fuel’s Dirty Beginnings: Environmental Damage and Public Health Risks From Uranium Mining in the American West, NRDC 2012.
Bruce Blair, Victor Esin, Matthew G. Mckinzie, Valery Yarynich, and Pavel Zolotarev, One Hundred Nuclear Wars: Stable Deterrence between the United States and Russia at Reduced Nuclear Force Levels Off Alert in the Presence of Limited Missile Defenses, Science & Global Security, 19 (3), 2011.
Bruce Blair, Victor Esin, Matthew G. McKinzie, Valery Yarynich, and Pavel Zolotarev, Smaller and Safer, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2010.
Thomas B. Cochran and Matthew G. McKinzie, Detecting Nuclear Smuggling, Scientific American, April 2008.
Thomas B. Cochran, Matthew G. McKinzie, Robert S. Norris, Laura S. Harrison, and Hans M. Kristensen, China’s Nuclear Forces: The World’s First Look at China’s Underground Facilities for Nuclear Warheads, Imaging Notes, Winter, 2006.
Thomas B. Cochran and Matthew G. McKinzie, Windows into North Korea: Satellite Views of the Hermit Kingdom, Imaging Notes, 20 (2), Summer 2005.
Fred Abrahams, Marc Garlasco, Darryl Li, and Matthew G. McKinzie, Verifying Destruction in the Southern Gaza Strip, Imaging Notes, 19 (2), Fall 2004.
Hans M. Kristensen, Matthew G. McKinzie, and Robert S. Norris, The Protection Paradox, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2004.
Matthew G. McKinzie, Thomas B. Cochran, Robert S. Norris, and William M. Arkin, The U.S. Nuclear War Plan: A Time for Change, Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, DC, June 2001.
Christopher E. Paine and Matthew G. McKinzie, Does the U.S. Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program Pose a Proliferation Threat?, Science & Global Security, 7, 1998.
Thomas B. Cochran, Matthew G. McKinzie, and Christopher E. Paine, Explosive Alliances: Nuclear Weapons Simulation Research at American Universities, Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, DC, January, 1998.
Thomas B. Cochran, Matthew G. McKinzie and Christopher E. Paine, End Run: Simulating Nuclear Explosions under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, DC, August 1997.
Matthew G. McKinzie, ed., The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: Issues and Answers, Peace Studies Program Occasional Papers, Peace Studies Program, Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, June 1997.