Lab scientist appointed to Presidential Board

Contact: Fran Talley, flt@lanl.gov, (505) 667-5225 (01-117)

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LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Oct. 31, 2001 -- Antonio "Tony" Andrade, a 20-year employee of the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, has been selected by President George W. Bush to be a member of the President's Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Safety.

Nominated for the position by Sen. Pete Domenici, (R-N.M.), the appointment was made in response to a request to Congress and other government agencies to assemble a group of experts in the areas of radiation dose assessment and reconstruction, radiation effects and current issues associated with the compensation of workers with radiation-related injury and illness claims.

Andrade, group leader for the Los Alamos’ Radiation Protection Services Group said he was “genuinely surprised” when he learned of his selection. "The news from the President's staff took a little while to sink in,” he said. “The thought of working as a peer with a number of distinguished scientists and other notable professionals for the White House is both exciting and numbing at the same time.

“People maintain a vague idea about the radiation around us but rarely stop to think about what a large and important part it plays in our lives,” Andrade said.“As a result, sometimes fear and misconceptions about radioactivity are accepted as truth.

The reality is that whether we are radiological workers or not, we all are constantly bathed in cosmic radiation and we all inhale, ingest, and absorb natural radioactive elements that are maintained in our bodies for significant periods of time,” he said. “But, just as with most things in life, too much of a good thing may be deleterious. The ultimate challenge is to determine just how much is too much.”

While at Los Alamos Andrade has been a member of the National Security Programs Support Team, was a technical assistant to the Associate Director for Defense Research and Applications, nuclear reactor projects specialist in the Reactor and Analysis Group, and director of Omega West Reactor. Andrade, a native of El Paso, Texas, holds an undergraduate degree in mechanical/nuclear engineering from the University of Texas and a M.S. and a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of Michigan.

Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

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