Edwin Lyman

Director, Nuclear Power Safety

Media Contact

Edwin Lyman is an internationally recognized expert on nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism as well as nuclear power safety and security. He is a member of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, and has testified numerous times before Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Since joining UCS in 2003, he has published articles in a number of journals and magazines, including Science, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Science and Global Security, and Arms Control Today, and he has been cited in thousands of news stories, including articles in the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and USA Today, and in segments on ABC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC, NBC, NPR and PBS. Dr. Lyman also co-authored the critically acclaimed book, Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster (New Press), which was published in February 2014. In 2018, Dr. Lyman was awarded the 2018 Leo Szilard Lectureship Award from the American Physical Society.

Before joining UCS, Dr. Lyman was president of the Nuclear Control Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based organization focused on nuclear proliferation. From 1992 to 1995, he was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University’s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies (now the Science and Global Security Program). He earned a doctorate degree in physics from Cornell University in 1992.

Selected publications

Lyman E., M. Schoeppner and F. von Hippel 2017. "Nuclear safety regulation in the post-Fukushima era," Science 356 (6340), 808-809. May.

Lyman E. and F. von Hippel 2016. “Nuclear Waste: Weapons Plutonium Riskier Above Ground” (letter), Nature 530, 281.

Lyman E. and F. von Hippel 2015. "Direct disposal is better solution for South Carolina's plutonium problem, Augusta Chronicle.

Lyman E. 2015.“Security and Nonproliferation Assessment of Breed-and-Burn Systems,” GLOBAL 2015 Conference, Paris, France

Lyman, E. 2014, “Material Accounting Issues at the U.S. MOX Facility, Proceedings of the International Atomic Energy Agency Symposium on International Safeguards, Vienna, Austria, 20-24, October.

Lochbaum D., Lyman E., Stranahan, S. 2014, Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster, The New Press.

Beyea J, Lyman E, von Hippel F. 2013. Accounting for long-term doses in "Worldwide health effects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident.” Energy and Environmental Science (forthcoming). DOI:10.1039/C2EE24183H.