Brad Wallin
Deputy Director
Brad Wallin is the Deputy Director for Strategic Deterrence (SD) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). He leads the Laboratory’s nuclear weapons program in its responsibilities to ensure the safety, security, and effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear deterrent and to support the transformation of the stockpile and the nuclear weapons enterprise for the future. He is also responsible for stewarding the broad range of science, technology, and engineering capabilities and infrastructure that underpin the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP) and lay the foundations for the long-term health and vitality of the Laboratory.
Wallin has more than 25 years of experience in nuclear security, including as Program Director for Weapon Physics and Design, Program Manager for Nuclear Threat Reduction, and as a technical advisor to the Office of Defense Science at the National Nuclear Security Administration. His technical career spans the many disciplines of weapon physics, including design, code development, and management of nuclear and high-energy-density facilities and experiments.
Michael Zika
Principal Associate Deputy Director
Michael Zika is the Principal Associate Deputy Director for Strategic Deterrence (SD) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). As Principal Associate Deputy, Mike serves as the principal advisor to the directorate and key participant in all aspects of the weapons program leadership and management.
Mike has worked at LLNL for 25 years. He has made technical and management contributions across many areas of the weapons program, including computational physics, nuclear weapon design, high-energy-density design, and uncertainty quantification. Mike has demonstrated leadership and knowledge of the core mission of the laboratory—to advance the state-of-the-art in weapon science in support of maintaining a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent. Most recently, Mike served as a Deputy Program Director for SD's Weapon Physics and Design Program.
Jong Olivier
Senior Advisor and Chief of Staff
Jong Olivier is the Senior Advisor and Chief of Staff for the Strategic Deterrence (SD) Principal Directorate.
Olivier has a long and accomplished history at the Lab. Early in her career, she built control systems for high-precision inspection machines and for adaptive optics systems in astronomy and high-powered lasers. She has also served in various leadership positions across the Laboratory, including standing up I Division (Optical Science and Technology) as the Deputy Division Leader, and serving as the Deputy Associate Director for Operations in the former Physics and Advanced Technologies Directorate. In the Global Security (GS) Directorate, she served as a Division Leader, as the Deputy Program Manager for Energy Security and Nonproliferation (E Program), and as GS’s Strategic Science and Technology Manager. Prior to joining the SD management team, Olivier was serving as the Principal Deputy Associate Director in LLNL’s Engineering Directorate.
Derek Wapman
Associate Deputy Director for Stockpile Modernization
Associate Deputy Director Derek Wapman joined Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 1980 and has extensive experience in nuclear weapon engineering and weapons systems project management. He has served as system manager and project engineer for several weapon systems and numerous other weapons-related projects. He was the SD Program Director for Weapon Technologies and Engineering, the Division Leader for Defense Technologies Engineering Division and the SD Deputy Principal Associate Director for Program Planning and Execution. He is currently the Associate Deputy Director for Stockpile Modernization.
Charles Slama
Associate Deputy Director for Operations
As the Associate Deputy Director for Operations, Charles Slama is responsible for the management of Strategic Decterrence’s facilities as well as overseeing nuclear operations, explosive operations, and hazardous waste management for LLNL.
Slama has more than 28 years of experience, having served in the nuclear Navy, at commercial nuclear facilities, and at DOE nuclear facilities, along with a variety of roles including operations, radiation protection, licensing, engineering, project management, and nuclear safety. Prior to joining LLNL, Slama served as the Director of Nuclear Safety and Criticality for Newport News Nuclear-BWXT (N3B) Los Alamos LLC, where he was the contractor liaison for Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. He is also a retired naval officer with 25 years of service, including as a nuclear operator and as an engineering duty offer. Slama holds Bachelor of Science degrees in nuclear engineering technology from Thomas A. Edison State University, as well as nuclear engineering and engineering physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Master of Engineering in nuclear engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Benjamin Grover
Associate Deputy Director for Program Enablement
With almost 20 years of experience leading highly technical teams and organizations through changes, Benjamin Grover brings with him not only exceptional leadership skills but a deep familiarity with the U.S. nuclear weapons program, high-performance computing, scientific software development, business development, project management, and strategic planning. His leadership provides the focal point for all aspects of strategic staffing, working in partnership with stakeholders to ensure a coordinated approach to recruiting, hiring, and development, while ensuring the successful long-term delivery of Strategic Deterrence’s programs and projects. Prior to his increasing leadership roles in SD, he served as a division leader within LLNL’s Computing Directorate and a detailee at the Department of Energy, forging a new program to bring high-performance computing software to industry. Grover received a B.S. and M.S. in civil engineering from Brigham Young University and is a certified project management professional.
Mark Herrmann
Associate Director for Weapons Physics and Design
Mark Herrmann is the Associate Director for the Weapon Physics and Design (WPD) Program. In this role, Herrmann leads LLNL’s efforts to strengthen our nation’s nuclear deterrent by advancing our understanding of nuclear weapons physics and design. This includes the physics design, assessment, and certification efforts for the enduring LLNL systems (W80, B83, W87), the W80-4 Life Extension Program, and the W87-1 Modification program. He also leads weapon science research and development, including focused experiments, integral hydrodynamic and subcritical experiments, high-energy-density (HED) experiments at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), and modeling and simulation using NNSA’s high performance computing capabilities.
Rob Neely
Associate Director for Weapon Simulation and Computing
Rob Neely is the Associate Director for the Weapon Simulation and Computing program (WSC), responsible for management oversight, strategy development, building internal and external partnerships, and stakeholder engagement. Neely has supported the LLNL mission for 27 of his 30 years of experience in high-performance computing (HPC) and scientific software development and now oversees all aspects of the world-class high-performance computing platforms and application development taking place at LLNL in support of stockpile stewardship and nuclear deterrence. Neely received his master’s degree in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and joined LLNL shortly after as an HPC application developer on the ALE3D project. He has since held several positions aimed at advancing LLNL’s HPC leadership in software and application development, hardware procurements, and computing research—all with an end goal of amplifying our mission impact on national security using simulation codes on modern heterogeneous architectures.
John Miller
Associate Director for Weapon Technologies and Engineering
John Miller is the Associate Director for Strategic Deterrence's Weapon Technologies and Engineering (WTE) Program, which is committed to providing engineering and scientific excellence in support of stockpile stewardship and other critical national security missions.
Miller has been a part of WTE for almost 20 years supporting various weapon system programs including roles on the W80-3 LEP, the Reliable Replacement Warhead, the W78/88 LEP, and the W87-1 Modernization Program. Miller has also served as the Reentry Systems Group Leader and System Manager for the W87-0. From 2018 until 2021 Miller served as the WTE Associate Program Director for Stockpile Systems. Miller received an S.B. from MIT and an M.S. from the University of California, Davis, both in mechanical engineering.
Cliff Shang
Program Director, Weapons Infrastructure
Cliff Shang is the program director for Strategic Deterrence's Weapons Infrastructure (WI) Program, which enables nuclear weapons infrastructure-based capability sustainment and delivery; modernizes nuclear weapons program equipment; and performs nuclear weapon enterprise evaluation and planning. The WI Program directly supports LLNL’s execution of modernization programs, annual certification and assessment processes, and enduring stockpile sustainment. The WI Program serves as the principal point of contact for weapons infrastructure activities for capital planning and acquisition. The WI Program also manages NNSA's Safety, Infrastructure, and Operations (SIO) portfolio at LLNL for nuclear weapons capabilities.
Shang concurrently serves as Director for the Office of Laboratory Infrastructure where he leads an integrated organization responsible for the planning, sustainment, and modernization of LLNL's capital infrastructure base. Within this program area, Shang has received five Defense Program Awards of Excellence, two NNSA SIO (NA-50) Excellence Awards, and an Energy Secretary’s Achievement Award.
