David Smith
President Donald Trump has appointed Charles Verdon, a principal associate director at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, as deputy administrator for defense programs at the Energy Department‘s National Nuclear Security Administration.
At LLNL, Verdon leads the federal research facility’s weapons and complex integration directorate that focuses on nuclear weapons programs, the White House said Monday.
His previous roles within the laboratory include principal deputy associate director of the WCI directorate; director of the Secondary Nuclear Design program; and leader of the AX-Division.
He has managed the facility’s effort to maintain technical and scientific leadership for thermonuclear weapon physics design and operation activities.
Verdon received the American Physical Society’s Excellence in Plasma Physics Research Award in 1995 for his research, theoretical and computational work on high-energy density plasmas.
He earned his bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees in nuclear engineering from University of Arizona.
