Speakers

Mark D. Abkowitz
Mark Abkowitz is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Vanderbilt University and Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Environmental Management Studies. Dr. Abkowitz specializes in the areas of all-hazards risk management program development, risk assessment, hazardous materials transportation safety & security, and applications of advanced information technology.

Steve Binkley
Steve Binkley currently is a senior advisor to the Under Secretary for Science within the U.S. Department of Energy.  In that capacity, he is responsible for assisting the Under Secretary in matters that pertain to nuclear security, with a primary emphasis on stockpile stewardship.  In that position, he is on detail from Sandia National Laboratories, where he has been employed since 1980. Dr. Binkley’s most recent positions include serving as Director of Technology for the National Operations Center within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (2003-2006), and senior advisor to the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs within NNSA (2000-2003).

Kevin G. Brown
Kevin Brown is a Senior Research Scientist in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Vanderbilt University. Mr. Brown’s research focuses on nuclear waste management issues including life-cycle risk analysis for buried mixed waste disposition and process and product control development for high-level waste immobilization.

Rodney C. Ewing
Rod Ewing is a professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at the University of Michigan, responsible for the program in radiation effects and nuclear waste management. He also holds appointments in Geological Sciences and Materials Science & Engineering and is an Emeritus Regents' Professor at the University of New Mexico in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, where he was a member of the faculty from 1974 to 1997 and chair of the department from 1979 to 1984. He is also an Adjungeret Professor at the University of Aarhus in Denmark.

Mark Gilbertson
Mr. Mark Gilbertson is currently the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Engineering and Technology within the Office of Environmental Management (EM). The objective of this organization is to reduce the technical risk and uncertainty in the Department’s clean-up programs and projects. To reduce those risks, the Program provides technical solutions where none exist, improved solutions that enhance safety and operating efficiency, or alternatives that reduce programmatic risks (costs, schedule, or effectiveness). Prior to his joining DOE, Gilbertson served on the staff of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Kathryn A. Higley
Kathryn Higley is a professor of Nuclear Engineering at Oregon State University, and a member of the CRESP management board. She teaches undergraduate and graduate classes on radioecology, dosimetry, radiation protection, radiochemistry, societal aspects of nuclear technology, and radiation biology. Her fields of interest include environmental transport and fate of radionuclides, radiochemistry, radiation dose assessment, neutron activation analysis, nuclear emergency response, and environmental regulations.

Thomas H. Isaacs
Thomas H. Isaacs is the director of the Office of Policy, Planning and Special Studies at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. He has held a variety of positions within the U.S. Department of Energy, including executive director of DOE’s Advisory Committee on External Regulation of DOE Nuclear Safety, director of Strategic Planning and International Programs, and deputy director of the Office of Geologic Repositories for the department’s radioactive waste program. He also served on the National Research Council’s Committees on Principles and Operational Strategies for Staged Repository Systems and Building a Long‐Term Environmental Quality Research and Development Program in DOE.

James H Johnson
James H. Johnson is a professor of Civil Engineering and dean of the College of Engineering, Architecture and Computer Sciences at Howard University. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in the area of environmental engineering. Dr. Johnson’s research interests include the treatment and disposal of hazardous substances, the evaluation of environmental policy issues in relation to minorities. Currently or recently he is Chairman of the Board of Scientific counselors of a member of EPA’s Science Advisory Board, and the National Research council’s Board of radioactive Waste Management. At CRESP he is a member of the management board.

David S. Kosson
David S. Kosson is Professor and Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Vanderbilt University, where he also has joint appointments as Professor of Chemical Engineering and Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences. He also is co-principal investigator (with Charles Powers) of the multi-university Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Evaluation. Professor Kosson’s research focuses on contaminant mass transfer applied to groundwater, soil, sediment and waste systems, as well as management of nuclear wastes. 

Jan L. Marivoet
Jan L. Marivoet is head of the Unit Performance Assessments at the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK•CEN) at Mol. He is mainly involved with safety studies of the geological disposal of high-level and long-lived radioactive waste in clay formations for the Belgian Agency for Radioactive Waste and Fissile Materials (ONDRAF/NIRAS). He is member of the Integration Group for the Safety Case of the Nuclear Energy Agency. He participated in international projects (NEA and European Commission) studying the impact of advanced fuel cycles and radioactive waste management.

Roger Nelson
Roger Nelson serves as the Department of Energy Chief Scientist for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico.  He provides science and technology support to all project participants.  His primary responsibilities include regulatory modifications to optimize and even eliminate unnecessary requirements placed on repository operations.  He guides the development of new characterization, transportation and disposal methods, and also manages multi-institute use of WIPP’s unique low background underground environment for basic science research, such as neutrino studies.

Mark T. Peters
Mark T. Peters is the Deputy to the Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Sciences and Engineering at Argonne National Laboratory. Technical responsibilities include the development of new program opportunities, management and integration of the energy and environment-related LDRD program, and support of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership program. His duties also include responsibility for program management and development in high-level nuclear waste disposal across the Laboratory, management and technical leadership of Department of Energy (DOE) long-term science and technology work related to radionuclide source terms, and technical support to senior DOE management on the Yucca Mountain Project.

Charles W. Powers
Charles W. Powers is Professor of Environmental Engineering at Vanderbilt where he is co-PI (with David Kosson) of the multi-university Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP) that he co-founded in 1995, and works in engineering ethics. His areas of expertise are environmental management and policy, organizational design and development, and ethics. He has held faculty numerous appointments including at Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. He has been Vice-President for Public Policy at Cummins Engine Company. He is currently chair of the New York/New Jersey Harbor Consortium of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Victor H. Reis
Victor H. Reis is Senior Advisor, Office of the Secretary, Department of Energy, and directs the Department’s Nuclear Integration Project. He is also a member Strategic Advisory Group of the U.S. Strategic Command the Sandia National Laboratory National Security Advisory Panel, the Argonne National Laboratory Board of Governors, the NNSA’s Predictive Science and Independent Capability Review Committees, and chaired the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory National Security Panel, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory Weapons Physics External Review Committee. Reis served as Assistant Secretary for Defense Programs in the U.S. Department of Energy from 1993 to 1999, where he led the development of the DOE’s Stockpile Stewardship Program.

Jane B. Stewart
Jane B. Stewart is the director of the International Environmental Legal Assistance Program, New York University School of Law. The program provides developing countries and countries with transition economies with practical assistance in strengthening and enforcing their environmental and land use laws and policies. She is part of the CRESP team, and with Richard Stewart coauthor of the Consortium’s studies on nuclear waste law and policy.

Richard B. Stewart
Richard B. Stewart is University Professor and John Edward Sexton Professor of Law at New York University and Director of NYU's Center on Environmental and Land Use Law. His current research interests include the use of economic incentives for environmental protection, global administrative law, international trade and regulatory conflicts over agricultural biotechnologies, and the precautionary principle of environmental regulation. He served as Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources in the Department of Justice from 1989-91.

Raymond G. Wymer
Raymond Wymer, Ph.D., is former director of the Chemical Technology Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and is now a consultant for the laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy, and its various contractors on all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle and radioactive waste management.