Los Alamos Director Thom Mason Delivers Keynote Address at IGCC
The global security environment is changing faster than at any point since the end of the Cold War, and universities will play a critical role in determining whether democratic countries keep pace with emerging threats, according to Thom Mason, director of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
Speaking to a packed audience in the Duane J. Roth Auditorium at the Sanford Consortium on the UC San Diego campus—including university leaders, Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs, leaders from General Atomics and other industry partners, and guests from academia and the general public—Mason outlined a strategic landscape defined by renewed great power competition, rapid technological disruption, and growing pressure on the institutions that underpin scientific innovation. His remarks, delivered as part of the 8th annual Herb York Memorial Lecture, highlighted the need for sustained investment in nuclear deterrence, stronger collaboration between government and academia, and a renewed focus on protecting the research enterprise from foreign exploitation while preserving the open research ecosystem that has underpinned US innovation since the end of World War II.
“We need to be careful that we don’t shut down our ability to move quickly,” he said.
Mason has served as the director of LANL, where the first nuclear bomb was created, and president and CEO of Triad National Security, LLC, since 2018. He provides strategic leadership for the Laboratory’s national security, science, and mission-delivery portfolio, guiding long-term priorities and partnerships, and ensuring operational excellence across a roughly 18,000-person workforce and one of the nation’s most complex scientific institutions.
The visit also served as a welcome: in spring 2026, Mason became an adjunct professor in UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy and a senior fellow at IGCC. Across the day, Mason also recorded an IGCC podcast, met with university leadership, and joined IGCC postdoctoral fellows for lunch, underscoring the growing relationship between LANL, UC San Diego, and the wider University of California system.
Mason argued that nuclear modernization remains a central national security priority as the United States confronts simultaneous challenges from nuclear-armed competitors. He described modernization not as an expansion of the arsenal, but as a long-overdue effort to replace aging Cold War-era systems and ensure the credibility of deterrence in a more dangerous world. Responding to concerns that modernization could spur a new arms race, Mason pointed to China’s rapidly expanding capabilities and argued that a race is already underway, although: “If only one person is running, is it a race?”
Mason’s remarks began in the past with a black and white photograph of Herb York alongside a dozen colleagues in front of a cyclotron, a type of particle accelerator that uses magnetic and alternating electric fields to propel charged particles outward in a spiral path. The cyclotron was invented in 1931 by American physicist Ernest O. Lawrence, and York oversaw the implementation of a major accelerator facility, the Materials Test Accelerator, when he became the first director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 1952. The image marked the beginning of an era of big science, Mason said, which Los Alamos and Livermore, along with the nation’s other national labs, continue today.
Mason described the world as having gone through three nuclear security ages: the first defined by the development of the atomic bomb during World War II; the second by the Cold War; the third by the end of the Cold War; and entering the fourth, our current era, by a move away from the rules-based order, the return of great power competition, the increasing relevance of nuclear deterrence, and rapid advancements in critical technologies.
Although Mason stressed that the future security environment will be shaped by technologies extending far beyond nuclear weapons, including artificial intelligence, quantum, and cyber capabilities, he emphasized that nukes remain in a category of their own because “there is absolutely certainty of horrific outcomes if they are used,” he said.
During a lively armchair conversation with Neil Narang, associate vice president for UC National Laboratories and co-director of IGCC, and a subsequent audience Q&A, Mason underscored the continuing importance of alliances, NATO in Europe and our allies in Asia, in maintaining global stability. As Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s military expansion reshape the international order, he argued that deterrence depends not only on military capabilities but also on the strength and cohesion of alliances. NATO leaders have repeatedly reaffirmed that credible deterrence and collective defense remain fundamental to preserving peace and preventing coercion in an increasingly contested security environment.
For universities, the challenge is not to retreat from international collaboration, Mason said, but to develop mechanisms that protect critical research while preserving the openness that drives scientific discovery. The issue is particularly acute in fields with national security implications, where breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, advanced materials, quantum science, and biotechnology can have both civilian and military applications.
Throughout the lecture, Mason framed universities as indispensable partners in addressing national and global security challenges. The next generation of scientists, engineers, and policy leaders, he argued, will be called upon to navigate an era in which scientific innovation and national security are more closely linked than at any time in recent decades.
Underscoring Mason’s point, June Yu, vice president of UC National Laboratories, said: “For nearly a century, the University of California’s partnership with the national laboratories has demonstrated how excellence in research, education, and public service can advance the nation’s security and prosperity. As Los Alamos National Laboratory navigates the challenges of its Fourth Age, UC remains committed to leveraging this unique partnership to develop the next generation of scientific leaders, accelerate innovation, and help address the complex security challenges facing our nation and the world.”
Mason’s message to the academic community was clear: maintaining technological leadership, strengthening deterrence, safeguarding research, and preserving international stability will require deeper engagement between universities, national laboratories, industry, and government. In an increasingly complex strategic environment, Mason suggested, the research enterprise itself has become a critical component of national security. At UC, that partnership has historic resonance: the University has managed or helped operate DOE national laboratories on behalf of the federal government since 1931, including Berkeley Lab, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore—a role with few parallels in American higher education.
“The University of California, first with the Army Corps of Engineers, then the Atomic Energy Commission, and now the Department of Energy has played a unique role in operating major research activities on behalf of the U.S. government bringing its commitment to scientific excellence and the highest standards of integrity,” he said. “The government-owned, contractor-operated model is a uniquely American creation which continues to serve the nation well more the eighty years later.”
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About The Herb York Memorial Lecture
The Herb York Memorial Lecture, which is hosted by the UC Institute on Global Conflict & Cooperation (IGCC) each year to honor Dr. Herbert F. York, UC San Diego’s founding chancellor, and the myriad contributions he made to the fields of international security and arms control. Past speakers have included former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni (2019); Admiral Scott Swift, former Pacific Fleet Commander (2019); John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (2016); Irwin Jacobs, Qualcomm founder and CEO emeritus (2014); Arati Prabhakar, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (2013); Penrose (“Parney”) Albright, director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (2012); and Zachary Lemnios, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (2011).
Dr. York (1921-2009), a distinguished nuclear physicist, was the founding director of the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), the first chief scientist of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later DARPA), and first director of Defense Research and Engineering under President Eisenhower. He was the founding chancellor of UC San Diego and the first director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1952–1958).
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