Dawn Shaughnessy

Background

About Dawn Shaughnessy

Dawn Shaughnessy has a background in nuclear and radiochemistry and received a Ph.D. in nuclear chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in the study of fission in the actinide elements. She completed a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where she performed research on the environmental behavior of plutonium. In 2002 she went to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as a staff chemist in the Stockpile Radiochemistry Group. In 2008 she was named the Deputy Program Element Leader for the Stockpile Radiochemistry Group, and was then named Group Leader of the Nuclear and Radiochemistry Group in 2010. In 2020 she was named Division Leader of the Nuclear and Chemical Sciences Division at LLNL.In addition to her management responsibilities, Dawn is the Principle Investigator for Heavy Element research at Livermore and the Group Leader for Radiochemical diagnostics and HED radiochemistry at the National Ignition Facility. Her current research interests include using ICF facilities for nuclear data measurements, fission properties, actinide chemistry, heavy element chemistry, and chemical automation.