65th Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management

Ulla Engelmann has obtained a phD in radiochemistry at the technical university of Karlsruhe (today KIT, Karlsruhe Institute for Technology) in 1992.

She then started as a postdoc in JRC Ispra in the Tritium laboratory, and moved to heading the PR department in JRC Ispra in 1997. From 2004 she worked in different Head of Unit functions in JRC, including communication, international and inter-institutional relations. She moved to DG GROW (Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship & SMEs) in 2017, where she held different functions with responsibility for SME networks, such as industrial clusters and Entreprise Europe Network, entrepreneurship, social economy and industrial forum and she was one year acting Director for networks and governance. Since 2023 she is JRC Karlsruhe Site Director (employer) and JRC Director G for Nuclear Safety and Security with units based in Karlsruhe (D), Geel (B), Petten (NL) and Ispra (I).

The mission of the JRC (DG Joint Research Centre) Directorate G for Nuclear Safety and Security is the implementation of the JRC Euratom Research and Training Programme, the JRC Nuclear Strategy and the maintenance and dissemination of nuclear competences in Europe to serve both ''nuclear'' and ''non-nuclear'' EU Member States. She manages an annual budget (excl. staff cost) of around 40 M€ and 320 staff distributed over 4 sites.

Corey Hinderstein currently serves as the Acting Principal Deputy Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. In her role as Acting Principal Deputy Administrator she leads strategic initiatives in the Enterprise; is the lead integrator on staffing; and advances international, emergency operations, and cyber issues important to NNSA and the White House.

Prior to assuming the Acting PDA role, Corey Hinderstein was confirmed by the Senate on November 30, 2021, and subsequently sworn in as Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at NNSA, where she set strategic direction for NNSA’s multifaceted efforts to prevent proliferation, support arms control monitoring and verification, and advance capabilities for an uncertain future.

Prior to her appointment to NNSA, she was vice president of International Fuel Cycle Strategies at the Nuclear Threat Initiative based in Washington, D.C., where she focused on international nuclear fuel cycle and nonproliferation policy, global nuclear security, and arms control and nonproliferation monitoring and verification. From February 2015 through November 2017, Hinderstein was senior coordinator for nuclear security and nonproliferation policy affairs at the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation office of the NNSA. In that role, she led DOE’s preparations for the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit and worked on other projects related to nuclear security and illicit trafficking, Iran’s nuclear program, and international monitoring and verification. Prior to her service at DOE, Hinderstein had been with NTI since 2006 and earlier was deputy director of the Institute for Science and International Security.

Hinderstein is a past president and Fellow of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management and served on the board of directors for the World Institute for Nuclear Security. She also has served in advisory capacities for multiple national laboratories and has published widely on nuclear nonproliferation, verification and monitoring and nuclear security. Hinderstein graduated from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Dr Stephan Lechner, based in Luxembourg, is Director of Euratom Safeguards at the European Commission's Directorate General for Energy. Mr Lechner also co-ordinates the policy activities for the European Commission on cybersecurity in the energy sector. Before this appointment to this position in July 2016, he was Director of the Institute for the Protection and the Security of the Citizen at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy, for more than 8 years. Before this responsibility he held various management positions and spent more than 18 years in the hi-tech sector of private industries, at large international enterprises and at telecommunications operators. He managed international expert teams in Germany and in China and has more than 25 years of experience in collaborative European projects. Dr Lechner holds a degree in mathematics and computer sciences and a doctoral degree in cryptography.