Lab-to-Lab: US-Russian Lab-to-Lab Collaboration Story [Archived]
Biographical Information for US and Russian Contributors
Alexei Vitalievich Abramov heads a research laboratory in VNIITF. In collaboration with LLNL, he led the establishment of the LS-DYNA computer code distribution project.
Sergey Nikolaevich Abramovich is professor of nuclear and radiation physics at Sarov Physical and Technical Institute.
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Afanasiev joined VNIIEF in 1968 and now heads the Science and Design Division and serves as first deputy chief designer.
Alexei V. Alekseev is a computer scientist and head of a research laboratory at VNIIEF, involved in computational modeling and simulation cooperation with US labs.
Victor Alessi served as director of the Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation in the Department of Energy under the George H. W. Bush administration. As executive assistant to the director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, he participated in negotiations of international nonproliferation agreements such as Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (II), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Steve Andreasen is a national security consultant to the Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington, DC, and teaches at the University of Minnesota. He served as director for defense policy and arms control on the National Security Council staff at the White House from 1993 to 2001.
Ron Augustson, working at LANL in the area of protection, control and accounting of nuclear materials (MPC&A), was developing and implementing technical means to be used world -wide by nuclear facility operators, and national and international inspection agencies, e.g. the DOE/NRC and the IAEA. In the US/Russian Lab-to-Lab Program, he was the Project Leader for the LANL teams working at a number of Russian facilities and also a member of the US Lab-to-Lab Steering Group. His duties included oversight of the LANL technical and program support activities to the L2L program and the establishment of strong working relationships with our Russian collaborators.
Evgeny Nikolaevich Avrorin came to Snezhinsk to work at VNIITF in 1955 as a graduate of Moscow State University. From 1985 to 2012, he served as scientific director of VNIIEF (with two years as the director starting in 1996) and now continues as honorary scientific director. He designed Soviet thermonuclear devices as well as nuclear devices for peaceful or industrial use.
Yuri Nikolaevich Barmakov came to work at VNIIA in 1955 after graduating from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute. He held a succession of leadership positions, including chief designer, director from 1987 to 2008, and most recently first deputy scientific director at VNIIA.
Anatoly Mikhailovich Bragov is head of the Laboratory of Dynamic Testing of Materials at the Institute of Mechanics at Nizhny Novgorod State University and professor at the Nizhny Novgorod State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering.
Arkady Adamovich Brish (1917-2016) was a weapons designer at VNIIEF from 1947 to 1955, when he joined VNIIA. He served as chief designer from 1964 to 1997 and was an honorary scientific director at VNIIA until the end of his life.
Hugh Casey is an expert in materials science and materials engineering, with an emphasis on metallurgy and structural materials. He worked for many years at LANL where he played a key role in developing the Department of Energy (DOE) Initiative in Proliferation Prevention and served as chairman of the DOE laboratories coordinating body for that initiative.
Molly Cernicek began her career at LANL identifying commercialization opportunities in Russian weapons institutes through the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP) program and building the IPP Information System. Her IPP work led her to co-found Volius Networks, a global telecom company based in Moscow and Tel Aviv. She is currently founder and CEO of SportXast, a mobile video platform for sports.
Frank J. Cherne is a scientist working in the Detonation and Shock Physics Group at LANL since 2002, where he worked with Russian scientists at VNIIEF and VNIITF examining phase changes under dynamic loading conditions.
Yuri Ivanovich Churikov is a theoretical physicist who joined VNIITF in 1964. He served as chief of the theoretical department until he was asked to head the newly created Materials Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) Division, which is the lead institution for MPC&A science and education in the Urals and Siberia.
David L. Clark is the director of the National Security Education Center at LANL and a Los Alamos Laboratory Fellow. He served as director of the Glenn T. Seaborg Institute for Transactinium Science from 1997 to 2009 and as a technical advisor to the Department of Energy for high-level radioactive waste, cleanup, and closure of the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site from 1995 to 2005.
Charles Curtis served as under secretary, deputy secretary, and acting secretary of the Department of Energy from 1994 to 1997. In 2001, Curtis became the founding president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, an organization devoted to reducing nuclear, chemical, and biological dangers. He is a former member of the Defense Policy Board and the Threat Reduction Advisory Committee at the Department of Defense. He is currently vice chair of the International Security Advisory Board of the State Department and a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Dremov is a physicist at VNIITF specializing in the modeling of plutonium and the actinides. He has been deeply involved in materials modeling as part of the lab-to-lab cooperation.
William H. Dunlop dedicated his scientific career to issues of arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation at LLNL, from which he retired in 2004. He was instrumental in helping to organize the first US-Russian laboratory director exchange visits for LLNL in 1992. From 1990 to 2004, he focused on scientific cooperation with the Russian nuclear weapons institutes.
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Elkin is VNIITF scientist engaged in dynamic properties research and shock wave physics.
Dennis J. Erickson is a Los Alamos physicist who began his LANL tenure as a postdoctoral fellow and later served in many capacities as a technical leader and senior manager. As deputy associate director for Nuclear Weapons Technology, he was instrumental in coordinating the first US-Russian laboratory director exchange visit to LANL in 1992. He was also a formative participant in the early Megagauss Conferences, which provided the framework for one of the highly productive US-Russian scientific collaborations.
Dmitry Yurievich Faikov is senior researcher in VNIIEF and advisor to mayor of the city of Sarov with expertise in strategies for innovation in closed territorial formations.
Igor Lvovich Feofanov is captain of the first rank (ret.) of the Russian army. He served as deputy director of Scientific and Engineering Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety of the Federal Service for Environmental, Industrial, and Nuclear Supervision.
Jerry Freedman managed the Advance Weapon Systems Division at SNL. He worked in energy and weapons programs during his 36-year career. He served as the deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for nuclear matters and as the senior technical adviser to the assistant secretary of energy for defense programs.
Robert L. Gallucci is a former US ambassador who most recently served as president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He had a long and distinguished diplomatic career, including ambassador-at-large and special envoy for the US Department of State. He also served as dean of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and most recently as a distinguished professor of Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown.
Sergey Florovich Garanin works in the field of plasma physics, electrophysics and magnetic compression fusion. He has worked in VNIIEF since 1975 after graduating the MEPhI program in theoretical nuclear physics. He is the deputy chief fortheoretical researchof theVNIIEF Theoretical Department.
Byron Gardner is retired from LLNL where he led the critical infrastructure protection program. He became involved in Russian cooperative programs while working at SNL in the early 1990s to provide security upgrades to Russian nuclear storage facilities.
Stephen Gitomer retired from LANL in 2005 and is currently the program director for plasma physics at the National Science Foundation and a senior scientist for the Civilian Research and Development Foundation. He was a member of the Los Alamos Nonproliferation and International Security division. He also served as a senior science advisor to the International Science and Technology Center.
Alexey Viktorovich Golubev worked from 1981 to 1998 as an engineer and then leading researcher in the Laboratory of Mathematical Modeling at VNIIEF. He became involved in technology commercialization as deputy director for industrial partnerships at the VNIIEF Center for International Relations where he was responsible for implementing projects of the International Science and Technology Center, Nuclear Cities Initiative, and Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention programs. He has served as the elected mayor of Sarov since 2011.
Yuri Ivanovich Goncharenko is captain of the first rank (ret.) in the Russian Navy. He served in the Federal Environmental, Industrial, and Nuclear Supervision Services of Russia, Rosatomflot.
Rose Gottemoeller is currently the under secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the US Department of State. She was director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasian Affairs on the National Security Council staff from 1993 to 1994. She also served as deputy undersecretary of Energy for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation from 1998 to 2000. Gottemoeller was the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center from 2006 to 2008 and was the chief US negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the Russian Federation in 2010.
George T. Gray is a LANL Fellow. From 1987 to 2002 he was a team leader at LANL and worked with Russian scientists at VNIIEF and VNIITF to study microstructural effects of shocked samples.
Andrey Grebennikov is at the VNIIEF Institute of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, involved in computational modeling and simulation cooperation with US labs.
Roger Hagengruber worked at various engineering and technical groups at SNL before assuming responsibility for Sandia’s nuclear weapons program as senior vice president from 1991 to 1999. He was responsible for all of Sandia’s US-Russian interactions from 1993 to 2003. Following his retirement from Sandia in 2003 he became the director of a new Center for Policy, Security, and Technology at the University of New Mexico. From 2006 to 2008 he was the chief security officer at LANL.
Anne Harrington is the deputy administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation for the National Nuclear Security Administration. She is the former acting director and deputy director of the Office of Proliferation Threat Reduction at the US Department of State and the former director of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control. She was instrumental in the establishment of the International Science and Technology Center while at the State Department.
Siegfried S. Hecker began his career at LANL in 1965. He served in a number of scientific and management leadership positions before becoming LANL’s fifth director from 1986 to 1997, during which time he helped to initiate US-Russian lab-to-lab nuclear cooperation. Since 2005, Hecker has been a professor (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering and a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He is also director emeritus at LANL.
Phil H. Hemberger worked as a research chemist at LANL before assuming responsibilities as LANL project leader for the Semipalatinsk project beginning in 1999. He retired from LANL in 2008.
Ann Heywood is the CEO of the Cochran Heywood International consulting firm. She was in the Medical Technology Program at LLNL and served as director of the Russian Medical and Manufacturing Program from 1991 to 2007. During that time, she played a crucial role in US-Russian defense conversion efforts sponsored by the Nuclear Cities Initiative.
Robert Huelskamp has been a senior manager at SNL since 2007. He previously served as a staff member and manager involved in the Warhead Safety and Security Exchange, Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention, the International Science and Technology Center, and Science and Technology Center Ukraine cooperative programs.
Thomas O. Hunter began his career in 1967 at SNL where he served in various leadership positions. He led Sandia’s Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention efforts with Russia. He served as Sandia’s senior vice president for defense programs with oversight of the lab’s nuclear weapons programs before serving as the laboratory’s president and director from 2005 to 2010.
Olga Nikolaevna Ignatova is a VNIIEF scientist working on dynamic properties of materials.
Rady Ivanovich Ilkaev began his career in VNIIEF in 1961. From 1996 to 2008 he served as director, and since 2008 he has been the scientific director. An Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ilkaev has made extensive contributions in theoretical and experimental plasma and explosion physics, modeling of complex physical processes, and strengthening the experimental and computational capability of VNIIEF. He was instrumental in US-Russian lab-to-lab cooperation.
Anatoly Semyonovich Ivanov is currently advisor to the director at VNIITF and formerly head of VNIITF Science and Design Division. He was general director of Spektr Conversion, a spinoff defense conversion enterprise started in 2001, which remains in business today.
Kairat Kamalovich Kadyrzhanov is currently advisor to the rector of the Eurasian National University in the Republic of Kazakhstan. He served as director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Kazakhstan from 1997 to 2006 and as director general of the National Nuclear Center from 2006 to 2014.
Alla Anatolievna Kassianova is a lab-to-lab book project associate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Previously, she taught in the International Relations program of Tomsk University (Russia) and conducted research on Russian security and defense industrial policy in Russia, Europe, and North America.
Ann M. Kaul is a member of the Materials and Physical Data Group in the Computational Physics Division at LANL where she has worked on material strength and damage, pulsed power, and code verification and validation.
Leonid Aleksandrovich Kochankov has worked at VNIIEF since 1974 and is currently with VNIIEF’s Methodological Center. He previously worked in the VNIIEF History Department and from 1974 to 1989 was the head of VNIIEF special scientific department.
Vladimir Fedorovich Kolesov most recently headed the theoretical division of the Institute of Nuclear and Radiation Physics at VNIIEF. His research has focused on physical processes underlying the development of nuclear reactors, especially in the field of aperiodic pulsed reactors.
Evgeny Aleksandrovich Kozlov is department head at VNIITF where he has worked in shock physics and materials properties. He has collaborated with US colleagues in these areas for many years.
Mikhail Yurievich Kozmanov is a mathematician who has worked in VNIITF since 1972. He serves as head of the Mathematics Department at VNIITF.
Andrey Mikhailovich Krakov graduated from Moscow Bauman State Technical University with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and Computer Science. He contracted for consultation and technical interpretation services with SNL, LLNL, and ORNL and provided liaison and coordination in materials protection, control, and accounting projects conducted jointly by the Russian Ministry of Defense and US nuclear labs.
David Lambert was a physical security specialist at the Y-12 National Security complex from 1981 to 1998 and served as the deputy director for nonproliferation program development at ORNL from 2004 to 2010.
Alexander Sergeevich Lavrentiev has worked at VNIIEF since 1971. He is the deputy head of the VNIIEF Security Department.
Ronald Lehman is currently the counselor to the director of LLNL. He formerly served as the director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency from 1989 to 1993, as the assistant secretary for International Security Policy at the Department of Defense, and as the deputy assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. He also served as the ambassador and US chief negotiator on Strategic Offensive Arms for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty from 1985 to 1988. He continues to serve as chair of the International Science and Technology governing board.
Irvin R. Lindemuth was the special assistant for Russian collaboration in the Office of the Associate Director for Weapons Physics at LANL at the time of his retirement in 2003. He is a former team leader and project leader at LANL and was one of the founders and leaders of the pulsed power collaboration with VNIIEF.
Petr Anatolievich Loboda is a scientist at VNIITF working on high-temperature plasma and the study of possible designs of X-ray lasers.
Andrey Kirillovich Lomunov is a professor and head of the department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the Nizhny Novgorod State University as well as senior researcher at the Institute of Mechanics at Nizhny Novgorod State University.
Arvid Lundy is a former project engineer, group leader, and program manager at LANL. He served as the lead US technical expert in the development of the Nuclear Supplier Groups dual-use list.
Greg Mann was a principal member of the technical staff at SNL from 1989 to 2004 where he worked with Russian colleagues at VNIIA on the TOBOS nuclear warhead container security system.
F. Jeffrey Martin was the technical LANL lead for the Russian Fissile Material Storage Facility for 12 years. He recently retired from LANL.
Sergey Petrovich Melnikov is a scientist working on laser physics at the Institute of Nuclear and Radiation Physics at VNIIEF.
Evgeny Evgrafovich Meshkov is an experimental physicist with research interests in hydrodynamic processes whose work received worldwide recognition through the phenomenon of Richtmyer-Meshkov instability. He has worked at VNIIEF since 1960 and headed a research department as well as teaching at the Sarov Physical and Technical Institute.
Anatoly Leonidovich Mikhaylov is director of the Institute of Experimental Gas Dynamics and Physics of Explosion. He has been deeply involved in lab-to-lab cooperation in these areas.
George H. Miller was a weapons designer and senior manager at LLNL.He served as the director of LLNL from 2006 through 2011 and previously served as associate director for Defense and Nuclear Technologies, associate director for National Security, and associate director for the National Ignition Facility and Photon Sciences. He is currently director emeritus at LLNL.
Nicolaos (Niko) I. Milonopoulos was a research assistant at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation until 2013. He currently holds the position of geographic information systems engineer at Google, Inc.
Alexei Vladislavovich Mirmelshtein is a physicist at the Department of Experimental Physcis at VNIITF following a long career at the Institute of Metal Physics, Ural Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ekaterinburg.
Mark F. Mullen was a technical staff memberin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Division at Los Alamos,specializing in nuclear safety, security, and safeguards. He was deeply involved in US-Russian cooperative threat reduction programs beginning in 1992. From 1995 to 1997, he was detailed to the Department of Energy headquarters in Washington as advisor to the director of the Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation. He also served from 2005 to 2009 as assistant director, Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, US Department of Homeland Security.
Boris Andreevich Nadykto is senior scientist in the Institute of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics at VNIIEF. His research focus is on high energy density physics, condensed matter physics, and theoretical problems of atomic spectroscopy. Since 2001 he has served on the organizing committee of the Russian-US Plutonium Science Workshops.
Dale Edwin Nielsen Jr. is a computational physicist who worked at LLNL from 1978 until his retirement in 2008. He began his career in the laser fusion and nuclear weapons programs and then spent 12 years in US-Russian lab-to-lab programs. He finished his career defining programmatic requirements for LLNL’s supercomputer acquisitions. He received his PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University.
K. David Nokes retired from SNL as the vice president of the National Security and Arms Control Division after a 43-year career. His various Sandia assignments included nuclear weapons engineering, advanced weapons systems design, and special science advisor for the assistant to the secretary of defense on nuclear weapons safety and security issues. He established and provided leadership for the Sandia Cooperative Measures Program Office with responsibility for Sandia’s initiatives with the Russian nuclear weapons laboratories.
Stanislav Aleksandrovich Novikov (1933-2005) began his scientific career at VNIIEF in 1956. He was a worldwide-recognized specialist in the field of dynamic strength of materials and structures and was instrumental in the beginning of lab-to-lab cooperation in dynamic properties of materials.
Michael O Brien is an associate program leader at LLNL and materials protection, control, and accounting (MPC&A) expert. He was instrumental in the MPC&A cooperation with the Russian military. Prior to joining LLNL in 1991, he served in the US Army, working in physical security and counterterrorism. He subsequently had similar positions within the Department of Defense.
Alexander Vasilievich Petrovtsev is a VNIITF scientist and department head. He was instrumental in fostering lab-to-lab cooperation with US labs and in organizing the Plutonium Science Workshops.
Nikolai Nikolaevich Ponomarev-Stepnoy is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. For more than 60 years he has performed research on nuclear energy, fast and thermal reactors, closing the fuel cycle, and high-temperature gas reactors. He has also worked on hydrogen energy, nuclear safety, and nuclear nonproliferation. From 1952 to 2010 he worked at the Kurchatov Institute, rising to the position of vice president, and since 1987 he has been the chief editor of the scientific journal Atomic Energy.
Dean L. Preston began his career as a theoretical physicist at LANL in 1985. Since 1997 he has collaborated with scientists at VNIITF and VNIIEF on high-rate material damage under electron-beam loading, spall in nanocrystalline copper, a generalized embedded-atom method interatomic potential, molecular dynamics studies of gallium-stabilized delta-phase plutonium, and plutonium aging with an emphasis on helium dynamics
Gennady Maksimovich Pshakin is a senior researcher in A. I. Leipunski Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (IPPE) in Obninsk. From 1965 to 1985, he was a nuclear engineer in the area of fast breeder reactor nuclear safety at IPPE. From 1985 to1993, he served as an IAEA safeguards inspector and from 1994 to 2003 participated in the International Atomic Energy Agency inspections in Iraq. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management.
Valery Tikhonovich Punin is advisor to the VNIIEF director. He formerly served as director of the Institute of Nuclear and Radiation Physics at VNIIEF.
Viktor Alekseevich Raevsky serves as deputy director for research and the head of the Scientific and Theoretical Department at the Institute for Physics of Explosion at VNIIEF.
Sergey Fedorovich Razinkov is a scientist at the Institute of Nuclear and Radiation Physics VNIIEF. He collaborated with US labs on nuclear monitoring and attribution verification systems.
Robert E. Reinovsky is a program manager and former group leader at LANL where he continues to advocate and lead science and technology cooperation in pulsed-power-based high-energy-density physics and other areas with VNIIEF and Russian institutes. He is one of the founders of the collaboration with VNIIEF.
Victor H. Reis is a senior advisor in the Office of the Secretary at the Department of Energy. He led the development of the Stockpile Stewardship Program as assistant secretary of energy for defense programs. He previously served as director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and as director of Defense Research and Engineering at Department of Defense. He also served as former assistant director for National Security and Space in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Jefferey H. Richardson is retired from LLNL, where he served as a division leader and program leader, among numerous other positions. He was involved in the LLNL Warhead Safety and Security Exchange Program with Russian laboratories.
C. Paul Robinson served as ambassador, chief negotiator, and head of the US delegation to the US/USSR Nuclear Testing Talks in Geneva from 1988 to 1990. He spent much of his early career, from1967 to 1985, at LANL in various scientific and management positions, including heading the nuclear weapons program. He joined SNL in 1990 and was president and director from 1995 to 2005.
Vladimir Grigorievich Rogachev is a theoretical physicist and MEPhI graduate who began his career at VNIIEF in 1969 and has served in many capacities. He was until recently the VNIIEF deputy director for international scientific collaborations and head of VNIIEF Business Relations Office, which kept him closely involved with most of the lab-to-lab activities between VNIIEF and US laboratories. He recently took over the leadership of the laser division at VNIIEF.
John Ruminer worked in weapons design for five years at LLNL. In 1975 he began a 30-year career at LANL, leading the engineering efforts in structural analysis and testing and eventually becoming head of Weapons Engineering. At the time of his retirement from LANL he was deputy director of Engineering Sciences and Applications. He is now an active volunteer for the Los Alamos Historical Society, serving on the Board of Directors and as a docent at the historical museum.
Lev Dmitrievich Ryabev is deputy director at VNIIEF and advisor to S. V. Kirienko, director general of the State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom). He began his nuclear career as a scientist at VNIIEF in 1956 and during the past 59 years has been largely responsible for most of Russia’s nuclear weapons enterprise, including as director of VNIIEF, minister of Medium Machine Building, and first deputy minister of Minatom.
Vladimir Ivanovich Rybachenkov graduated from MEPhI with specialization in computer science. From 1994 to 2003 he served as counselor at Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responsible for coordinating US-Russian nuclear cooperation. From 2003 to 2010 he was counselor at the Russian Federation Embassy in Washington, DC, in charge of supervising bilateral cooperative projects in nuclear energy and nonproliferation.
Georgy Nikolaevich Rykovanov is a theoretical physicist with interests in hydrodynamic phenomena, turbulence theory, theory of detonation physics, fusion, and extreme states of matter. He began his career at VNIITF in 1977 and from 1998 to 2012 served as director. He is currently scientific director of VNIITF.
Jose Saloio is a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at SNL. From 1999 to 2007 he played a central role at Sandia and nationally in the Warhead Safety and Security Exchange program with the Russian nuclear institutes.
Alexander Nikolaevich Scherbina is a research engineer in the field of measuring instruments for the study of fast processes, with expertise in the organization of full-scale nuclear weapons tests at Semipalatinsk and Novaya Zemlya test sites. He has worked in VNIITF since 1955 and more recently headed the Center for Nuclear Energy Safety at VNIITF.
Glenn Schweitzer is the director of the Program on Central Europe and Eurasia at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and was the first executive director of the International Science and Technology Center in 1994 after leading the two-year effort to establish the center. In the 1960s, he had been the first science officer to serve at the US Embassy in Moscow.
Rashit Mirzagalievich Shagaliev is a mathematician who has worked in VNIIEF since 1972. He is the first deputy director of the Institute of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics at VNIIEF, with concentration on mathematical modeling and computing systems, and co-organizer since 1998 of the annual Supercomputing and Mathematical Modeling Workshop.
Vadim Aleksandrovich Simonenko is a theoretical physicist who has worked at VNIITF since 1961 and most recently served as deputy scientific director. He was a participant in the 1988 Joint Verification Experiment and the 1989 Geneva process for Threshold Test Ban Treaty protocol. He is the co-founder of Zababakhin Scientific Readings at VNIITF.
Georgy Mikhailovich Skripka is a senior scientist at VNIIEF with expertise in safeguard technologies and integrated materials protection, control, and accounting systems.
German Alekseevich Smirnov (1937-2015) started his career as a weapons designer at VNIIA in 1960. From 1997 to 2015, he served as VNIIA’s chief designer. He greatly contributed to national and international programs to raise the safety of nuclear weapons at all stages of their life cycle.
Richard Smith served as a manager in the Surety Projects Department of former Soviet Union projects at SNL and was active in the Warhead Safety and Security Exchange program.
Alexei Vladimirovich Sokovishin is deputy chief designer at VNIIA and deputy head of the VNIIA International Relations Department.
Andrey Sergeevich Sviridov is a graduate of MEPhI. He is deputy chief designer at VNIIA and head of the International Relations Department.
Lidia Fedorovna Timofeeva is the leading scientist at A. A. Bochvar Research Institute of Inorganic Materials (VNIINM) working in the field of plutonium material science. From 2001 she has served on the organizing committee of the Russian-US Plutonium Science Workshops.
James W. Toevs is a nuclear physicist who worked at LANL on weapons diagnostics, directed energy, and explosive pulsed power. He was among the first scientists from LANL to work with Russia’s nuclear weapons institutes in 1992. He is the former project leader for the Nuclear Cities Initiative at LANL and currently works on the Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence Program for LANL and the Department of Energy.
Jim Trebes is Physics Division Leader at LLNL. He and Ann Heywood were in the Medical Technology Program and collaborated with the LLNL Proliferation Prevention and Arms Control Program for the Avangard Project. He was involved in US-Russian defense conversion efforts sponsored by the Nuclear Cities Initiative program.
Steve M. Valone has retired from his position as member of the technical staff at LANL. He joined the Materials Science & Technology Division in 1984, where he was involved in a variety of materials modeling projects with a special focus on plutonium and the actinides.
Boris Konstantinovich Vodolaga is a theoretical physicist who performed research in high-energy-density physics. He has worked at VNIITF since 1972 and served for many years as deputy director of international relations for VNIITF. He has been a co-organizer of several major international scientific conferences, including the Zababakhin Scientific Readings and the Plutonium Science Workshops held at VNIITF.
Nikolai Pavlovich Voloshin spent the first half of his career working as an engineer and leader in nuclear test expreriments in VNIITF. In 1994 he left Snezhisk to begin work in Minatom’s Directorate for Development and Testing of Nuclear Weapons (the 5th Main Directorate), which he headed from 1996 to 2004. At that time, he returned to VNIITF as deputy director.
Boris Leonidovich Voronin is a department head at VNIIEF, involved in computational modeling and simulation cooperation with US labs.
Olga Stanislavovna Vorontsova has worked at VNIIEF since graduation from MEPhI. Since 1998 she has been engaged in VNIIEF international programs and currently serves as director for International Cooperation and head of the Business Relations Office.
Rodion Ivanovich Voznyuk worked at VNIITF for more than 46 years and retired as first deputy director in 2013.
Paul C. White was a weapons designer and weapons program manager at LANL for more than 30 years. He served as a technical advisor to the Nuclear Testing Talks in Geneva, Los Alamos program manager for Russian Nonproliferation Programs, acting deputy director for National Security, and, before his retirement, national security adviser to the laboratory director.
Stephen M. Younger was a nuclear weapons designer at LLNL from 1982 to 1989. He is a former senior associate director for National Security at LANL and served as the director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency at the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004. He was president of National Security Technologies, LLC, and manager and operator of the Nevada National Security Site before serving as vice president and chief technologist of Northrop Grumman Technical Services. He is currently a senior policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.
Vladimir Ivanovich Yuferev is a senior scientist at VNIIEF with expertise in materials protection, control and accounting. He serves as the head of the Rosatom Center for Safety of Nuclear Materials at VNIIEF.
Yuri Kuzmich Zavalishin began his career in 1955 as an engineer at the Avangard Electromechanical Plant, the first Soviet plant for serial production of nuclear weapons. He served as general director from 1990 to 2000 and as scientific director from 2000 to 2002. He has authored several books on history of Avangard and Soviet nuclear weapons industry and currently teaches at the Sarov Physical Technical Institute.
Nikolai Valentinovich Zavyalov is director of the Institute of Nuclear and Radiation Physics at VNIIEF.
Mikhail Vasilievich Zhernokletov is head of department at VNIIEF, working on dynamic properties of materials.
Vladimir Ivanovich Zhigalov is deputy director for innovation and investment in VNIIEF. He is a co-founder of Sarov Technopark and serves on the Supervisory Board of Sarov Innovation Cluster. He was deeply involved in many defense conversion projects in Sarov under the Nuclear Cities Initiative.
Stanislav Sergeevich Zhikharev, at VNIIEF since 1962, is senior scientist at the Institute for Theoretical and Mathematical Physics at VNIIEF.
Konstantin N. Zimovets is deputy head of department at VNIIA specializing in nuclear weapons security technologies.
Marvin A. Zocher is in the Computational Physics Division at LANL. He has been actively involved in collaboration with researchers from VNIIEF, VNIITF, and several institutes of the Russian Academy of Science since the year 2000. For several years he served as project lead for an extensive portfolio of collaborative activities conducted within the lab-to-lab framework.
