Dr. Terry C. Wallace Jr.

Terry C. Wallace Jr., Ph.D., FAGU is Principal Associate Director for Science, Technology, and Engineering, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
 
The Principal Associate Director of Science, Technology, and Engineering is responsible for all basic science programs at LANL, and coordinates the activities of the four science and engineering directorates. Terry brings strong science credentials and a track record as an effective science manager at LANL.
 
During the period of 2005 to June 2006, Terry was the Associate Director of Strategic Research, which encompassed LANL’s science program offices and the five line divisions that implemented those programs and supported LANL’s nuclear weapons, threat reduction, and energy security missions. He was also responsible for LANL’s non-National Nuclear Security Administration Department of Energy programs, including basic science, energy technology, and environmental technology. Before becoming the Associate Director for Strategic Research, he was the Division leader of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Division.
 
Raised in Los Alamos, Terry returned in 2003 after 20 years as a professor of geosciences and an associate in the applied mathematics program at the University of Arizona. In addition to teaching, he carried out research on global threat reduction, nonproliferation verification, and computational geophysics. During his academic career, he worked with LANL on nuclear test monitoring and threat reduction. in particular on interpreting the indications of nuclear testing by a foreign government. He has an international reputation in geosciences as applied to national security issues.
 
He holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in geophysics (California Institute of Technology) and B.S. degrees in geophysics and mathematics (New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology). He is the author or coauthor of more than 80 peer-reviewed publications on seismology and tectonics, including ground-based nuclear explosion monitoring and forensic seismology. He also wrote a widely used textbook on seismology. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and in 1992 he received the AGU’s Macelwane Medal.
 
Terry has served as President of the Seismological Society of America, Chairman of the Incorporated Institutions for Research in Seismology, and authored the position paper for the American Geophysical Union on the verifiability of a comprehensive test ban treaty. He has testified before Congress on the comprehensive test ban and participated in numerous National Academy panels, including ones on research in support of comprehensive test ban monitoring. During 2000–2006, he was the Chair on the National Research Council’s Committee on Seismology and Geodynamics.
 
He is coauthor of Modern Global Seismology, Crust and Mantle Structure Across the Basin and Range – Colorado Plateau Boundary, The Active Tectonics of the Eastern Himalayan Syntaxis and Surrounding Regions, Crust and mantle structure across the Basin and Range-Colorado Plateau boundary at 37°N latitude and implications for Cenozoic extensional mechanism, Rupture Characteristics of the Deep Bolivian Earthquake of 9 June 1994 and the Mechanism of Deep-Focus Earthquakes, Crustal-thickness variations in the Central Andes, Active tectonics of the Pamirs and Karakorum, and A technique for the inversion of regional data in source parameter studies.
 
Watch Behind the White Coat: Tsunamis with Terry C. Wallace Jr.