Dr. Thomas B. Cochran is a consultant to the Natural Resources Defense Council where he began working in 1973. Prior to retiring in 2011, he was a senior scientist and held the Wade Greene Chair for Nuclear Policy at NRDC, and was director of its Nuclear Program until 2007. He has served as a consultant to numerous government and non-government agencies on energy, nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear reactor and nuclear waste matters.

Dr. Cochran is the author of The Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor: An Environmental and Economic Critique (1974); co-editor/author of the Nuclear Weapons Databook, Volume I: U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities (1984); Volume II: U.S. Nuclear Warhead Production (1987); Volume III: U.S. Nuclear Warhead Facility Profiles (1987); Volume IV: Soviet Nuclear Weapons (1989); and Making the Russian Bomb: From Stalin to Yeltsin (1995).

Dr. Cochran received his Ph.D. in Physics from Vanderbilt University in 1967. He was assistant Professor of Physics at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, from 1967 to 1969, Modeling and Simulation Group Supervisor of the Litton Mellonics Division, Scientific Support Laboratory, Fort Ord, California, from 1969 to 1971, and from 1971 to 1973, he was a Senior Research Associate at Resources for the Future.