Siegfried Hecker

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Siegfried S. Hecker while director of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Siegfried S. Hecker (b. 1943 in Poland to an Austrian family) served as director of Los Alamos National Laboratory for 11 years (1986 - 1997) and is now a professor at Management Science and Engineering Department at Stanford University.

Hecker received his B.S. in Metallurgy in 1965, his M.S. in Metallurgy in 1967, and his Ph.D. in Metallurgy in 1968, all from Case Western Reserve University. Hecker began his professional career as a senior research metallurgist with the General Motors Research Laboratories in 1970 after two years as a postdoctoral appointee at Los Alamos.

Since 1988 Hecker has been a visiting Professor in Materials Engineering at Stanford University. He currently is co-director of the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation. He also acts as advisor to the Nuclear Threat Initiative board of directors. He has visited North Korea in an unofficial capacity to assess the plutonium program at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center.

His achievements have been recognized with the American Nuclear Society's Seaborg Medal and many other awards including the Navy League of the U.S.'s TR & FD Roosevelt Gold Medal for Science Award in 1996.