Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory



John S. Foster, Jr., became the first recipient of the John S. Foster, Jr. Medal on September 29, 2015. Established by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, and bestowed on an annual basis by the director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the medal recognizes an individual for exceptional leadership in scientific, technical, and engineering development and policy formulation in support of U.S. nuclear security objectives.

Foster began his career at the newly formed Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory after earning his degree from the University of California at Berkeley. While at Livermore, he led a team that made a major breakthrough in nuclear weapons design that continues to be the basis for all modern U.S. nuclear weapons. He also recognized the need for safety and security features in deployed nuclear weapons and spearheaded early development and improvement efforts. He became Livermore’s director in 1961. In this role, he drove Livermore to expand its national security responsibilities to meet existing and emerging needs.

Foster subsequently served eight years as director of Defense Research and Engineering for the Department of Defense until 1973, when he left to become the vice president of TRW, Inc. He later served as TRW’s officer for Science and Technology and joined the board of directors. Foster has served on many defense-related advisory committees and task forces, including as a member of the Defense Science Board for more than three decades as well as of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and was a member of the recent Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.



Livermore climate scientist David Bader has been elected a fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). Election to the grade of AMS fellow recognizes outstanding contributions to the advancement of atmospheric and related sciences, technologies, applications, and services for the benefit of society. Bader began his career in 1985 at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He later moved to Lawrence Livermore in 2003 as director of the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison. In 2009, he took a position at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as the founding deputy director of the Climate Change Science Institute. He returned to Livermore in 2011 as climate program leader. Bader has been a member of AMS for more than 20 years and has held positions on the AMS Applied Climatology Committee, the AMS Board on Data Stewardship, and program committees for several AMS conferences. A maximum of 0.2 percent of the AMS membership is approved annually through the fellow nomination process.



Seven Lawrence Livermore scientists have been selected as fellows of the American Physical Society (APS). Lee Bernstein was cited by the Division of Nuclear Physics for “work developing novel methods of determining neutron–nucleus cross sections via high-resolution gamma-ray spectroscopy, the early development of surrogate ratio method, and the study of nuclear processes in high-energy-density plasmas at NIF.” Stavros Demos was recognized by the Division of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics for “outstanding contributions using unique optical techniques to understand the relaxation dynamics of point defects and developing noninvasive biomedical photonics for rapid tissue assessment.” Fred Streitz was selected by the Division of Computational Physics for “important contributions to computational condensed matter physics and for leadership in extreme scale computation.”

The Division of Plasma Physics honored three researchers. Pierre Michel was cited for “outstanding contributions to laser–plasma interaction physics and dynamic multi-laser beam physics, enabling symmetry control in indirectly driven inertial confinement fusion implosions.” Yuan Ping was named for “pioneering experiments exploring the nature, equilibration, and use of nonequilibrium plasmas strongly driven by coherent and incoherent sources.” Vladimir Smalyuk was recognized for “seminal contributions to the understanding of hydrodynamic instabilities in inertial confinement fusion using elegant experiments on Omega and NIF.”

Finally, Damian Swift was cited by the Topical Group on Shock Compression of Condensed Matter for “wide-ranging contributions to shock- and ramp-wave compression experiments using laser, pulsed-power, and explosive drivers, and for employing rigorous quantum and statistical mechanical principles to guide the formulation of theoretical solutions to experimental problems.”

Election to APS fellowship is limited to no more than one half of 1 percent of APS’ membership for a given year. In the past 30 years, more than 100 Lawrence Livermore scientists have been elected APS fellows.