Over the past 80 years, nuclear deterrence, nonproliferation efforts, and arms control have played key roles in improving and maintaining global security. However, today’s rapidly changing geopolitical environment presents new challenges to these long‑standing efforts. Shifts in alliances, evolving military capabilities, and the ambitions of potential adversaries are placing increased strain on systems and strategies that have helped prevent conflict for decades.
Marvin Adams,
Texas A&M University
The United States has long focused on maintaining a credible and effective nuclear deterrent while working to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. Today, global conditions continue to change in ways that make it difficult to sustain the successes of these efforts. This talk will outline the major challenges now facing nuclear deterrence, nonproliferation, and arms control, and will highlight current efforts aimed at addressing them and supporting long‑term peace and security.
Dr. Marvin Adams began his professional career in 1977 at the Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant near Chattanooga, Tennessee. He later earned his B.S. in nuclear engineering from Mississippi State University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of Michigan. Since 1986, Dr. Adams has worked in a wide range of roles focused on national and international security, bridging engineering, science, and public policy.
From 2022 until 2025, Dr. Adams served as Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). In this role, he was responsible for the programs that design, manufacture, certify, transport, maintain, assess, and dismantle U.S. nuclear weapons, and for working with other federal agencies on policy and force structure decisions related to the U.S. nuclear deterrent.
Prior to his Senate confirmation as NNSA Deputy Administrator, Dr. Adams served on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology; the Stockpile Assessment Team of the Strategic Advisory Group for U.S. Strategic Command; the JASON defense advisory group; the National Academies’ Committee on International Security and Arms Control; the Predictive Science Panel for the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories (LLNL and LANL); the Mission Committee for LANL; the Predictive Engineering Sciences Panel at Sandia National Laboratories, and many other review and advisory bodies related to national security.
Before serving as NNSA Deputy Administrator, Dr. Adams spent more than five years as a physicist in the weapons program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and 30 years as a Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University. After serving as Deputy Administrator, Dr. Adams returned to the Texas A&M University System as a Senior Advisor for Nuclear Security, where he remains actively engaged in many efforts that support national security.