Kimberly Budil

Dr. Kimberly Budil is the N Program Manager in the Global Security Principal Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). She is responsible for the nuclear counterterrorism program including device assessment, pre- and post-detonation nuclear forensics, nuclear incident response and reachback, and nuclear detection and countermeasures research. This portfolio of work spans the full spectrum from basic science research, through applied science and technology development, to training of emergency responders and support for field response activities. This program is supported by a wide variety of U.S. government sponsors including the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, and the intelligence community. She is also the Deputy Program Director for Nuclear Counterterrorism within the Office of Strategic Outcomes.

Prior to assuming her current roles, Dr. Budil was a Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Science at the Department of Energy.  In this role she provided technical assistance on matters related to the National Nuclear Security Administration including its missions, the scientific and technical capabilities of the NNSA laboratories and complex, and the relationship between the NNSA and the broader DOE.  Dr. Budil was detailed to this assignment from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where she was the Associate B Program Leader for Science, Technology and Experiments within the Weapons and Complex Integration (WCI) Directorate.  In this role she managed the fundamental research program supporting WCI including the Dynamic Material Properties Campaign and the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Physics and Engineering Models Program. 

In 2003 she was detailed to NNSA headquarters in Washington, D.C. for two years where she was assigned to the Office of Defense Science.  In this role she managed the Dynamic Materials Properties Campaign, served as the Chair of the Pit Lifetime Working Group and provided technical advice on a variety of issues.

During her career at LLNL, Dr. Budil has pursued research in a number of areas including High Energy Density Physics, performing experiments on the Nova, and later Omega, lasers investigating hydrodynamic instabilities, equations-of-state, and radiation transport, and computational studies of fundamental materials properties and other weapon physics issues.  In 2002 she was selected to be the Scientific Editor for the Laboratory publications Science and Technology Review and National Security Review.