Speaker: Mary Hockaday
Nuclear Engineering and Nonproliferation, NEN Division Leader
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Mary is the Division Leader of Nuclear Engineering and Nonproliferation (NEN) at LosAlamos National Laboratory (LANL). NENDivision develops nuclear safeguards concepts and instruments used to monitor and measure nuclear materials, operates the Nation’s only capability for nuclear criticality experiments, and develops unique nuclear reactor concepts. She has held many leadership positions from Team Leader to Associate Director in very distinct organizations over her 40-year career at LANL. As a staff member, Hockaday joined the Fast Transient Plasma group at LANL fielding and developing x-ray diagnostics for underground nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). Subsequently, she turned to applying high-powered lasers, pulse power, and proton radiography for the study of weapons physics. She returned to the NTS as Diagnostic Coordinator for a subcritical event. For nearly a decade she served as Deputy Associate Director of Weapons Physics and Program Director for Science and Inertial ConfinementFusion and High Yield (ICF) Campaigns. She then served as the associate director for Experimental Physical Sciences from 2013-2018. She has an MS and PhD in physics from New Mexico State University. Hockaday is an AAAS Fellow and is a past member of the Panel on Public Affairs for APS and APS’ Committee on the Status of Women in Physics. Mary’s passion is her extended family and thinks her three grand kids totally rock!