Energy Security
LLNL’s Energy and Homeland Security Program is accelerating innovation to enable secure and resilient energy security and systems. It develops multidisciplinary science and technology solutions for developing a reliable energy supply, resilient infrastructure, domestic and cybersecurity and defense systems.
Nuclear Threat Reduction
LLNL’s Nuclear Threat Reduction Program spans across nonproliferation from material monitoring and arms control to detection and assessments, counterterrorism and counter-proliferation, nuclear forensics and emergency incident response and seeks to develop and deliver enduring science-based, intelligence-informed expertise and capabilities to anticipate and overcome nuclear threats world-wide.
Intelligence
LLNL’s Intelligence Program provides in-depth analytic insight, technical solutions and operational support to the intelligence community. Established in 1965 to provide expertise on the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapon program, it now covers a wide range of national security concerns, including space security, biological and chemical threats and emerging and disruptive technologies.
Huban A. Gowadia leads the Global Security Directorate, managing a workforce responsible for building and executing intelligence, nonproliferation, counterproliferation and counterterrorism programs. She heads incident response to threats across the spectrum of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive sources and oversees programs critical to global security in energy technologies, infrastructure protection and cyber and space security.
For more than 25 years, Gowadia has supported national security and served at the highest levels of government, including multiple organizations in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Aviation Administration. As acting administrator at the Transportation Security Administration, she led more than 60,000 employees charged with protecting critical transportation systems and the traveling public. She also served as the presidentially appointed Director of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office at DHS.
Gowadia joined the Laboratory as the National Ignition Facility and Photon Science deputy principal associate director for programs. Gowadia has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Penn State University and a B.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Alabama.
Eric McKinzie serves as Global Security’s principal deputy principal associate director (DPAD). McKinzie assists the principal associate director in managing, developing and executing programs in international and domestic security, particularly overseeing LLNL responsibilities in intelligence, energy, nonproliferation, nuclear counterterrorism and addressing chemical, biological and explosive threats. He advises on business activities including development and implementation efforts aimed at addressing future needs and program-development opportunities. Additionally, he represents GS on institutional and external committees and working groups and routinely interacts with high-level internal and external contacts.
Prior to his role in Global Security, McKinzie served as the Operations and Business (O&B) DPAD, representing O&B across a range of operational areas, including cross-departmental partnerships and effectiveness, budget, stakeholder collaboration, and external representation to government constituents such as the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration. McKinzie has an M.S. in engineering management and computer science from Santa Clara University and a B.S. in computer science from San Diego State University.
Dennis McNabb is Global Security’s deputy principal associate director for strategic programs. McNabb supports the development of an integrated Global Security Strategy, developing implementation plans, identifying and implementing unifying principles and engaging with external sponsors to ensure their priories are reflected in the strategy. He also has oversight of the execution of GS missions and conducts technical reviews to ensure quality and effectiveness of GS projects.
McNabb started at LLNL more than 20 years ago as a post-doctoral researcher, holding several different applied research and development and technical management assignments during his career, including a detail to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Defense Programs Science Council.
Prior to his role in Global Security, McNabb served in the Strategic Deterrence Directorate, managing and developing workforce supporting hydrodynamic, subcritical and underground experiments and guiding the fundamental material science program. McNabb has a Ph.D. in physics from Rutgers University and a B.S. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Donna Mailhot serves as Global Security’s deputy principal associate director for operations. Mailhot manages operational matters related to contract assurance, information technology, business and infrastructure. She represents the principal associate director on institutional and external committees and working groups that include operational, safety, and security issues.
Prior to Global Security, Mailhot served as the deputy director of the Management Assurance System Office (MAS), developing organizational strategies and priorities, and ensuring continuous improvement of a credible Contractor Assurance System and Quality Program that includes: requirements management, assessments, issues and corrective action management, performance measurement, performance analysis and regulatory compliance assurance.
Before her role in MAS, Mailhot served as an Assurance Manager in both Global Security and Strategic Deterrence/Nuclear Materials Technology Program. Mailhot holds an M.B.A. in business administration and management from Notre Dame de Namur University and a B.S. in aerospace engineering from Texas A&M University.
Program Manager
Tarabay Antoun is the program manager of the Energy and Homeland Security Program where he develops innovative solutions for reliable energy supply, cybersecurity and resilient infrastructure and homeland and defense systems security.
Previously, Antoun served in multiple roles in LLNL’s Atmospheric, Earth, and Energy Division within Physical and Life Sciences, including as division leader and Computational Geosciences group leader, guiding efforts to maintain world-class computational geomechanics capabilities at the Lab with national security, homeland defense, energy and environmental applications.
Before joining LLNL, Antoun worked for the Stanford Research Institute (SRI International), performing numerical and experimental investigations aimed at understanding dynamic fracture and fragmentation in geologic materials. He has authored more than 100 technical publications and has a patent on a novel high-strain-rate method for identifying optimized subsurface fracture networks for geothermal and other energy applications. Antoun holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, an M.S. in structural engineering, and a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Dayton.
Program Manager
Brad Hart leads a diverse, multidisciplinary team of intelligence professionals to deliver comprehensive analysis, policy and operational support where technological research and development are critical to the nation’s strategic priorities. These priorities range from combating weapons of mass destruction and cybersecurity to space science and security and other emergent, disruptive technologies, and includes detection and analysis that anticipates consequences and contributes to actions to preserve and enhance the security of our nation. Hart began his career in 2001 as a post-doctoral researcher. He served as a staff scientist in the Forensic Science Center (FSC) until 2008.
He left the Lab to serve as a branch chief within the Defense Intelligence Agency where he oversaw global technical collection activities and provided intelligence capabilities in active theaters of operation. In 2011, he was awarded a National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation. Hart returned to LLNL in 2011 as the director of the FSC before he and was selected as Z Program Manager. Hart holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California Irvine and a B.A. in chemistry from the University of Kansas.
Program Manager
Amy Waters is the program manager for the Nuclear Threat Reduction Program (N Program) in the Global Security Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where she leads the development of cutting-edge technical solutions and provides expert technical support to the nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear counterterrorism, nuclear forensics, emergency response and consequence management priorities of the federal, state, and local governments.
Her research interests include x-ray imaging for security applications including explosives detection and operational testing and evaluation of threat countermeasures technologies. Prior to joining LLNL in 2002, Waters worked in the cargo security industry. Waters holds a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering, an M.S.E in mechanical engineering, and a B.S. in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University.
