01-09
January 25, 2001
UPTON, NY - Joseph P. Indusi has been appointed chair of the Nonproliferation and National Security Department (N&NS) at the U.S. Department of Energy¹s Brookhaven National Laboratory, effective January 1. He had been acting chair of N&NS since May 2000, when the new department was created.
N&NS's staff of 33, as well as about six staff members from other departments at Brookhaven Lab, help the Department of Energy and other government agencies to safeguard nuclear materials in the U.S. and throughout the world, including Russia, and prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The department has an annual budget of $26 million, of which $11 million is subcontracted to Russian nuclear facilities.
"We are entrusted with a job that is of utmost importance to the U.S. government, and we have a staff of experts who can do that job extremely well," Indusi said.
He added, 'A new initiative in our department will be to provide technical support to the Department of Energy in the area of anti-terrorism. The attack on the twin towers in New York City was the first major foreign terrorist incident directed against the U.S. on U.S. soil. We will be helping to safeguard U.S. facilities, particularly facilities in the Northeast, against such attack."
N&NS had its beginnings in the Technical Support Organization, established by the Atomic Energy Commission, the precursor to DOE, in 1968. Brookhaven's N&NS has five major programs:
* U.S.-Russian Security In cooperation with Russian nuclear facilities, provide technical assistance in promoting enhanced safeguards and security systems for the protection and accountability of weapons-grade nuclear materials, such as uranium and plutonium.
* Safeguards and Arms Control Develop safeguards systems and arms control verification approaches and technology to stem the spread and reduce the danger from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons worldwide.
* International Safeguards Provide technical oversight of projects designed to strengthen the International Atomic Energy Agency¹s safeguards.
* Environmental Threat Reduction - Address the environmental and proliferation concerns associated with the dismantlement of Russian nuclear submarines.
* Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention - Support nonproliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons by providing sustainable non-weapons related jobs to Russian weapons scientists.
Indusi earned a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Bridgeport in 1965, an M.S. in applied analysis from Stony Brook University (SBU) in 1969, and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics and statistics from SBU in 1971. After working as a systems consultant at Burndy Corporation in Norwalk, Connecticut, Indusi joined Brookhaven Lab in 1973, working as an assistant mathematician in its Technical Support Organization (TSO). In 1979, he moved to the Laboratory's Nuclear Waste Management Division as a mathematician, and, in 1980, returned to TSO. From 1986 to 2000, Indusi was Division Head of the Safeguards and Arms Control Division, and, in May 2000, he became acting chair of the department for which he now serves as chair.
The U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory creates and operates major facilities available to university, industrial and government personnel for basic and applied research in the physical, biomedical and environmental sciences, and in selected energy technologies. The Laboratory is operated by Brookhaven Science Associates, a not-for-profit research management company, under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy.
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NOTE TO LOCAL EDITORS: Joseph Indusi is a resident of Miller Place, NY.
