Lawrence Livermore lab’s Zucca receives award from the National Nuclear Security Administration

Jay Zucca, a principal deputy for Global Security and geophysicist with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), recently received the Distinguished Service Gold Award from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for his work in nonproliferation and nuclear security.

Zucca was presented with the award by Anne Harrington, deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation (DNN) at the NNSA. During her presentation, Harrington cited Zucca’s leadership and impact with other agencies as factors that enabled DNN research and development to initiate major efforts to advance the next germination of monitoring capabilities.

Zucca’s work spanned a variety of programs and treaties, which included the Ground-Based Nuclear Explosion Monitoring (GNEM) Program, the Source Physics Experiments and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) Organization. Zucca led the LLNL’s GNEM team from 1995 to 2001. Prior to his time with GNEM, he was a member of the U.S. delegation to the nuclear testing talks, where he focused his efforts on on-site inspections from 1987 to 1990.

Zucca began his career with LLNL focusing on the laboratory’s geothermal energy program, where he developed ways to detect steam in geothermal reservoirs

“As the leader of Livermore’s GNEM Program, Jay has been both a leader and an intellectual guiding force for DNN’s activities aimed at improving U.S. nuclear explosion monitoring technical capabilities,” Harrington said.