Allison Macfarlane
Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
Experience
Dr. Allison Macfarlane is the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She holds a doctorate in geology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Most recently she was an associate professor of environmental science and policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. She spent three years as a research fellow with the Belfer Center's Project on Managing the Atom as well as holding fellowships at Radcliffe College, MIT, and Stanford. From 1998–2000, she was a Social Science Research Fellow/MacArthur Foundation Fellow in International Peace and Security. She has served on National Academy of Sciences panels on nuclear energy and nuclear weapons issues.
From 2010–2012, she served on the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, created by the Obama Administration to make recommendations about a national strategy for dealing with the nation's high level nuclear waste. Her research has focused on environmental policy and international security issues associated with nuclear energy, especially the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle. In 2006, MIT Press published a book that she co-edited, Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation's High-Level Nuclear Waste, which explored technical issues at the proposed waste disposal facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
Fall 2006
"Is It Possible to Solve the Nuclear Waste Problem?"
Journal Article, Innovations, issue 4, volume 1
By Allison Macfarlane, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
"With the issuance of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in February 2007 the world faces the stark reality that it must reduce greenhouse gas emissions immediately or face dire consequences. Nuclear energy provides a reliable source of carbon dioxide–free electricity, and a global expansion of nuclear power could replace fossil-fuel fired plants significantly within twenty to fifty years. One of the main impediments to the expansion of nuclear energy is the unresolved problem of what to do with the nuclear waste. Though nuclear power has been with us almost fifty years, to date, not one of the 30 countries with nuclear power plants has opened a nuclear waste repository...."
April, 2006
Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation's High-Level Nuclear Waste
Book
By Allison Macfarlane, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
April, 2006
Introduction
Book Chapter
By Allison Macfarlane, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
April, 2006
Technical Policy Design Making in Siting a High-Level Nuclear Waste Repository
Book Chapter
By Allison Macfarlane, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
April, 2006
Uncertainty, Models, and the Way Forward in Nuclear Waste Disposal
Book Chapter
By Allison Macfarlane, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
March 1, 2006
Yucca Mountain and High-Level Nuclear Waste Disposal
Testimony
By Allison Macfarlane, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
Testimony of Allison M. Macfarlane for the Environment and Public Works Committee, U.S. Senate, Hearing on the Status of the Yucca Mountain Project, March 1, 2006
July, 2005
All Weapons of Mass Destruction are Not Equal
Magazine or Newspaper Article, MIT Center for International Studies Audit of the Conventional Wisdom, volume 05-8
By Allison Macfarlane, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
June 4, 2005
Don't Put Nuclear Waste on Military Bases
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Allison Macfarlane, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
2003
Standoff at Yucca Mountain: High Level Nuclear Waste in the U.S.A.
Book Chapter
By Allison Macfarlane, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
June, 2001
Interim Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel: A Safe, Flexible, and Cost-Effective Near-Term Approach to Spent Fuel Management
Annual Report
By Jennifer Weeks, Former Executive Director and Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom/Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, 1997-2001, Allison Macfarlane, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom, John P. Holdren, Former Director and Faculty Chair, Science, Technology and Public Policy Program and Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
