For the past 40 years the Nuclear Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has continuously maintained a staff of scientists, policy analysts, and litigators dedicated to reducing and ultimately eliminating the security and environmental risks from nuclear weapons arsenals worldwide. The NRDC Nuclear Program played a key role in the citizen-scientist diplomacy that helped end the Cold War and stop nuclear weapons test explosions in the United States and Russia, and it was NRDC litigation that established the judicial precedent bringing the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons complex under the jurisdiction of the nation’s environmental laws. The NRDC Nuclear Program today is a leading nongovernmental authority on nuclear arms control and disarmament, and a prominent voice in academic and policy debates towards achieving safety, non-proliferation and environmental safeguards for nuclear power in the context of Climate Change.
The Scoville Fellow will join the NRDC Nuclear Program’s team of five technical experts, policy analysts, and attorneys working on one or more of the following project areas: (1) reducing the risk of nuclear war through creative technical analysis and through fostering a more collaborative international system conducive to arms control and global elimination of nuclear weapons; (2) mitigating the risk of severe nuclear accidents at reactors that produce electricity through science and litigation; (3) preventing national programs for spent nuclear fuel reprocessing and the plutonium fuel cycle; (4) shaping US efforts to establish a deep geologic repository for the long-term disposal of spent nuclear fuel; and (5) protecting groundwater and other natural resources from harms inflicted by uranium mining.
Working closely with program staff, the Scoville Fellow will have opportunities for research, analysis, writing and advocacy, and a mentoring experience commensurate with the fellow’s background, creativity, capabilities, and interests. The fellow will have an opportunity to gain exposure to the full range of the Nuclear Program’s activities, and to work with experts in related areas of NRDC, such as in NRDC’s International, Energy, Climate and China programs.
Founded in 1970, the NRDC now has a staff of more than 400 attorneys, scientists, public policy experts and other professionals working on a broad range of environmental challenges. NRDC benefits from the engagement of more than 1.4 million members and online activists, and has offices in New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Montana and Beijing.