Thomas Ramos

About Thomas Ramos

Tom has written a history of the early years of the Cold War and the role played by physicists and political analysts to construct a defensive strategy. The history culminates when President Kennedy travels to Berkeley to personally thank those physicists for averting a nuclear war.For almost 20 years Tom led several programs that served the Defense Department, most notably among them the Counterproliferation Analysis and Planning System (CAPS), which helps military operators plan missions against facilities linked to a hostile country’s ability to make weapons of mass destruction. CAPS was used in several conflicts including Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. Another program that Tom started was the Homeland Defense Operational Planning System (HOPS), a program similar to CAPS, but steered towards analyses of America’s critical infrastructure. In the 1980’s Tom was a nuclear weapons designer for the X-Ray Laser Program in support of the country’s Strategic Defense Initiative. In the program’s last test, Tom led a team of physicists who designed the program’s brightest laser. In 1989 he was assigned to DOE where he prepared the Secretary of Energy for National Security Meetings concerning resumption of the START Talks with the Soviet Union. In 1991, Tom was assigned to the Pentagon as the nuclear weapons advisor to the Secretary of Defense. His primary duty in this role was to act as the Legislative Affairs Officer for the Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Atomic Energy.Prior to joining the Laboratory in June 1981, Tom was an associate professor of physics at West Point, New York, where he taught each of the physics department’s core courses, as well as electives in Quantum Mechanics and Nuclear Physics. Tom earned a Masters of Science Degree in High Energy Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor of Science Degree from the United States Military Academy.

Experience

1. Physicist

   Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

   Jun 1981 — Present

   On Special Assignment to the Principal Associate Director

Education

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  MS, Physics

  1975 — 1977

• United States Military Academy at West Point

  BS, General Engineering

  1965 — 1969

Skills

• Materials Science
• Nanotechnology
• Nuclear Physics
• Energy
• Simulations
• Fortran
• Science
• Security Clearance
• Scientific Computing
• Mathematical Modeling
• Data Analysis
• Defense
• Optics
• Numerical Analysis
• Nuclear Proliferation
• R&D
• Systems Engineering
• Spectroscopy
• Operational Planning
• Analysis
• Physics
• Dod
• National Security
• Experimentation
• Nuclear
• Experimental Physics
• Program Management
• Strategy
• Military