Carol E. Kessler

In October 2003, Carol E. Kessler was named Director for the Pacific Northwest Center for Global Security at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), operated by Battelle Memorial Institute for the U.S. Department of Energy. The Center’s mission is to address the full range of global security issues by probing the impact of economic, social, institutional energy and environmental conditions that affect it. There will continue to be an emphasis on the issues of nonproliferation in the Center’s work due to their consequence for global security.

Prior to joining PNNL, Kessler served as Deputy Director General of the Nuclear Energy Agency at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, France. In this capacity she was the principal manager of the day-to-day operations of the Agency. Before this, she spent a total of 14 years at the US Department of State, principally in the fields of nuclear nonproliferation, international nuclear safety and nuclear energy. She was the State Department’s Senior Coordinator for Nuclear Safety from 1995-2000. As such she was the US lead in the G-7 Nuclear Safety Working Group dedicated to efforts to improve the safety of Soviet designed nuclear plants and to close those which could not be upgraded to meet international standards. From 1997-2000, Ms. Kessler led US and international efforts to close the last reactor at Chornobyl, which was accomplished on December 15, 2000.

During the period from 1984-89, she worked for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission on nuclear export controls and international safeguards.

Ms. Kessler is a member of Sigma Xi, AAAS and the American Nuclear Society.

She has received two Masters of Science, one in Technology and Policy from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982 and one in National Security Studies from the US National War College in 2001. She has a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in Bio-geology.

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