The Department of Nuclear Engineering and the Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute (NSSPI) Present:

Invited Speakers Series

"Nuclear Technology and Society"

Dr. Jay Davis, president, Hertz Foundation discusses the recently signed START follow-on treaty between the US and Russia is expected to open the door to strengthening the nonproliferation regime and to further steps towards the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. Based on his vast experience in technical management of defense nuclear technologies, as well as nuclear security policy, he will share his perspectives and give his assessment of the opportunities, issues, and obstacles in pursuing such a path to a "Nuclear Weapons-Free World."

Dr. Jay Davis is the President of the Hertz Foundation, which funds graduate studies in the applied physical sciences and engineering. Jay is a nuclear physicist trained at the Universities of Texas and Wisconsin. During his three-decade career at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, he built accelerators for research in nuclear physics and for materials science in support of the fusion program. In 1988, Davis founded the Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, the World’s most versatile and productive AMS laboratory, creating isotopic tracing and tagging tools for research programs in the geosciences, toxicology, nutritional sciences, oncology, archaeology, and nuclear forensics. At the time he left LLNL to join the Department of Defense in 1998, he was the Associate Director for Earth and Environmental Sciences.

In the national security component of his career, he worked to develop techniques for arms control treaties, was a senior member of the NEST program, served as an inspector in Iraq for UNSCOM after the First Gulf War, and then served as the founding Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. As Director of DTRA, he merged three DoD organizations to create DoD’s operating and technical focus for dealing with all aspects of weapons of mass destruction.

Among his honors are Phi Beta Kappa, an Atomic Energy Commission Postdoctoral Fellowship, and being twice given the Distinguished Public Service Medal, DoD’s highest civilian award. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and serves on its Panel on Public Affairs. He currently serves on the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board and the Board on Army Science and Technology of the National Academy of Sciences. He also serves on the Board of Distinguished Advisors for the American Committees on Foreign Affairs. Jay’s continuing interests are in the areas of nuclear forensics, renewal of the US nuclear force, management of change in organizations, and counter-terrorism. Married to Mary McIntyre Davis for forty-six years, he has two grown children, four grandchildren, and happily operates a small Livermore vineyard, producing Petite Syrah grapes for boutique winemaking.

For more information on the Invited Speaker Series, click here.