First Los Alamos Global Security Medal Awarded
Established earlier this year, the medal recognizes exceptional achievements of active or recently retired laboratory employees who have made significant contributions to the LANL global security mission.
R. Marc Kippen is the first recipient of the Los Alamos Global Security Medal, with Los Alamos National Laboratory announcing it Sept. 24 and reporting it recognizes his innovative professional and scientific excellence supporting the laboratory's global security mission -- specifically, Kippen's leadership and achievements in developing, promoting, and sustaining national security capabilities and programs in space-based sensing and nuclear detonation detection.
"Marc Kippen has dedicated his career to the laboratory's national security mission," said Terry C. Wallace, Jr., director of LANL. "Los Alamos has a long and storied history in monitoring nuclear explosions, and Marc has been a leader in the space-based nuclear detonation and detection program. He has designed satellite hardware, played a key role in interpreting data collected by those satellites for national monitoring techniques, and has been an architect of the national policy to continue to monitor from space. It is an honor to award Dr. Kippen the first Global Security Medal."
Established earlier this year, the medal recognizes exceptional achievements of active or recently retired laboratory employees who have made significant contributions to the LANL global security mission.
"Marc is very well-known and respected at home and abroad in national security programs that have impacted not only the laboratory, but also national and international communities," said Nancy Jo Nicholas, who heads the Global Security directorate at Los Alamos. "His innovation, substantial contributions, and steadfast commitment to space-based capabilities and programs will be felt far into the future supporting key mission areas of this laboratory."
Kippen is the Nuclear Detonation and Test Detection Program manager for the Nuclear Nonproliferation and Security Program. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of New Hampshire, is a graduate of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Management Institute, and has published more than 200 articles in scientific journals and conference proceedings.
An award ceremony will be held in October.