2019 Fall Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics
Volume 64, Number 12
Monday–Thursday, October 14–17, 2019;
Crystal City, Virginia
Session GA: Alternative Career Paths for a Nuclear Physicist
2:00 PM–3:48 PM,
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Room: Salon 1
Chair: Evie Downie, GWU
Abstract: GA.00001 : Achieving the extraordinary: Careers in Nuclear Physics at the NNSA Laboratories
2:00 PM–2:36 PM
Preview Abstract
Abstract
Author:
Nancy Jo Nicholas
(LANL)
The broad and diverse National Security mission given to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s laboratories requires
strategic investments in maintaining and growing its core expertise and technologies in the area of nuclear physics. Nancy Jo
Nicholas, Associate Laboratory Director for Global Security at Los Alamos National Laboratory, will discuss the breadth of
opportunities for nuclear physicists at the NNSA Laboratories. Nicholas holds a Master’s Degree in Experimental Nuclear
Physics. \\
The mission of Los Alamos National Laboratory is to solve the most complex national security challenges through scientific
excellence. The Laboratory maintains an agile, responsive, and innovative workforce dedicated to multidisciplinary science,
technology, and engineering capabilities. In addition, LANL maintains unique experimental and computational facilities,
eleven of them nuclear. Lab personnel with degrees in nuclear physics work in a wide range of basic and applied research
fields, technology development, as well as numerous non-traditional technical fields. \\
The NNSA Labs support diverse programs that include scientists of many nationalities, participation in experiments
worldwide, sponsorship of workshops and conferences, and classified experiments and analysis. Areas of research at Los
Alamos include nuclear science, plasma physics, quantum information science, weapon stockpile modernization, weapons
physics, semiconductor irradiations, detector development, neutron radiography, advanced imaging, weapons data analysis,
biosecurity, image analysis, signal processing, neural computation, experimental and computational neuroscience, and more. In
the Global Security Directorate, nuclear physicists work on multidisciplinary teams in the physics of arms controls, space,
nuclear safeguards, and intelligence. Researchers use nuclear material in a variety of forms to pioneer nuclear safeguards
concepts, develop instruments and techniques to monitor and measure nuclear materials, operate the Nation’s only capability
for nuclear criticality experiments, and lead the development of unique and innovative special-purpose nuclear reactor
concepts. \\
Nicholas will also touch on the national laboratories’ significant investments in Laboratory Directed Research and
Development, career development, internships, and a wide range of summer schools.