Mary Ann Yates
As a postdoctoral fellow at the Los Alamos Meson Physics facility, Dr. Yates worked on several university collaborations resulting in publications in nuclear, atomic, and particle physics.
She joined the staff of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to develop nuclear chemistry based diagnostics for laser fusion and published in the field of plasma physics.
Following that, she developed diagnostics and designed experiments for underground testing of nuclear devices, “Star wars” technologies, advanced accelerator applications, and studies related to nonproliferation. In 1993, Dr. Yates was assigned to DOE-HQ as a technical advisor on arms control issues.
During her three year tenure, she was the technical lead at DOE for the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), the executive secretary for the bilateral negotiations with Russia on the Production Reactor Shutdown/Conversion Agreement, technical advisor to the US delegation to the Conference on Disarmament (CD) on FMCT, and coordinator for the US Ambassador to the CD for the Host Country Agreement for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization negotiations with the Austrian government.
In 1996, she returned to LANL as acting program manager for Nonproliferation and Arms Control. The next year, she became the lead project leader and laboratory coordinator for START III issues. In 1998, Dr. Yates was asked by Dr. Donald D. Cobb, the new Associate Laboratory Director for Threat Reduction to be his Chief of Staff and help build the new organization dedicated to using the broad scientific base of LANL to address emerging threats to US national security.
From June-October 2001, Dr. Yates served in the Policy Planning Office of the National Nuclear Security Administration where she supported work in nonproliferation and homeland security.
She returned to LANL to lead the 9-11 response team and serve in the role of coordinator for homeland security initiatives. In April 2004, Dr. Yates became the Deputy Center Director for the Los Alamos Center for Homeland Security.