Physicist David Albright is the founder and President of the nonprofit Institute for Science and International Security. He has written numerous assessments on secret nuclear weapons programs throughout the world.
During his career, Albright has testified numerous times on nuclear issues before the U.S. Congress. He has spoken to many groups, technical workshops and conferences, briefed government decision-makers, and trained many government officials in non-proliferation policy making. The media frequently cite Albright, and he has appeared often on television and radio.
Albright cooperated actively with the IAEA Action Team from 1992 until 1997, focusing on analyses of Iraqi documents and past procurement activities. In June 1996, he was the first non-governmental inspector of the Iraqi nuclear program. On this inspection mission, Albright questioned members of Iraq’s former uranium enrichment programs about their statements in Iraq’s draft Full, Final, and Complete Declaration. In the spring of 2003, after the fall of Baghdad, he initiated a successful effort to retrieve the only complete set of classified Iraqi documents, hidden since the 1991 Gulf War, about making gas centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.
Prior to founding the Institute, he worked as a Senior Staff Scientist at the Federation of American Scientists and as a member of the research staff of Princeton University’s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. In the early 1980s, he taught physics at George Mason University in Virginia. He has served as a consultant or contractor to the Environmental Policy Institute, the Congressional Research Service, the International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
He is an American Physical Society (APS) Fellow. He was the 2006 recipient of the APS’s Joseph A. Burton Forum Award. He received a 1992 Olive Branch Award for a series of articles he wrote, along with Mark Hibbs, on the Iraqi nuclear weapons program for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He was also a Bulletin contributing editor and was a guest editor of special editions of the magazine.
Prior to founding the Institute in 1993, Albright was a Senior Staff Scientist at the Federation of American Scientists and a member of the research staff of Princeton University’s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. In the early 1980s, he taught physics at George Mason University. Albright received a Masters of Science in physics from Indiana University in 1980, a Masters of Science in mathematics from Wright State University in 1977, and a Bachelor of Science from Wright State University in 1975. In addition to the Outstanding Alumni Award, Albright also received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Wright State University in 2007.
He is the author of several books on proliferation of atomic weapons, including titles such as Iran’s Perilous Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons and Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America’s Enemies.