not in residence

Research Interests
International technical cooperation to support arms control/nonproliferation, treaty verification, and integrated strategies for nuclear weapons, energy and nonproliferation.

Arian L. Pregenzer was a 2009-2010 CISAC visiting scholar. She is a Senior Scientist in the Global Security Program at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is responsible for initiating new programs in arms control and nonproliferation and for developing strategies for international engagement for multiple laboratory programs. In addition, she provides leadership for Sandia's efforts to integrate across nuclear weapons, arms control, and nonproliferation missions to effectively meet nuclear security challenges.

Under her leadership, Sandia's Cooperative Monitoring Center (CMC) was established in 1994. The CMC is a unique facility dedicated to the exploration of how sharable technology can contribute to achieving nonproliferation, arms control, and other international security objectives. It promotes effective dialogue between policy and technology experts, and enables international technical cooperation to develop new approaches to security problems. CMC projects have brought together researchers from Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority; India and Pakistan; and Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Russia, and China.

In 2003, Dr. Pregenzer led the establishment of a Cooperative Monitoring Center in Amman, Jordan, on the campus of the Royal Scientific Society.  The CMC - Amman focuses on nonproliferation, border control, strategic trade control, public health, and environmental security. In 2004 she worked with the Arab Science and Technology Foundation (ASTF) to establish a program to reintegrate the Iraqi science and technology community into the international community.  This program evolved into the Iraqi Scientist Engagement program under the Global Initiative for Proliferation Prevention.

Most recently, Dr. Pregenzer has focused on near-term steps that can enhance nuclear security while advancing the goals of NPT Article VI. She is particularly interested in how international technical cooperation on topics such as verification methods for nuclear arms control, nuclear weapons security and accountability, and nuclear fuel cycle management can establish the technical basis for moving toward a world without nuclear weapons.

Dr. Pregenzer has bachelors' degrees in physics, mathematics, and philosophy from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in theoretical condensed matter physics from the University of California at San Diego. Prior to her career in international security, she worked at Sandia to develop lithium ion sources for particle-beam-driven inertial confinement fusion.