William Priedhorsky, PhD
LGNA Partner and Chief Scientist. Voted Resident Genius. Fanatical Hiker. Trail Blazer.
Dr. Priedhorsky is a Partner and the Chief Scientist in the LGNA, with a primary focus on space technologies. He has been associated with Los Alamos National Laboratory since 1978 and was honored to be named a Laboratory Fellow in 1997. He is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society and recipient of their Leo Szilard Award.
From 2007 to his retirement in 2022 he was Program Director for Laboratory Directed Research and Development, managing investments in flagship Laboratory research. His research interests include space instrumentation, technologies to stymie the spread of weapons of mass destruction, as well as astrophysics. He is now a guest scientist and Fellow in the Intelligence and Space Research division.
Early in his career, he developed x-ray diagnostics for laser fusion research, and discovered copious hard x-rays from CO2 laser-plasma interaction. In addition, he joined the Space Astronomy and Astrophysics group and discovered a wealth of eruptions and long-term cycles in cosmic neutron stars and black holes using data from the Los Alamos Vela 5B satellite. He also discovered what was then the closest double star in the sky, and the novel phenomenon of quasi-periodic oscillations in the brightest x-ray star in the sky, Scorpius X-1. Notably, he led the development of photon-counting optical imagers for remote ultralow light imaging, a project that continues to this day as “Remote Ultralow Light Imaging”. He conceived and led the development of ALEXIS, Los Alamos’ first small satellite, launched in 1993, and the MOXE x-ray all sky monitor. In addition, Dr. Priedhorsky also developed instrumentation for the detection of nuclear materials in space.
From 1995 to 1999, he was the Project Leader for Proliferation Detection Technology, responsible for the Lab’s projects in active and passive remote sensing, as well as the Laboratory’s efforts in Hard and Deeply Buried Target Defeat.
From 1999 to 2007 he was Chief Scientist in the Nonproliferation and International Security Division, the International, Space, and Response Divisions, and the Threat Reduction Directorate, responsible for the health of basic and applied research in space science, proliferation detection, treaty monitoring, nuclear safeguards, and international technologies.
Dr. Priedhorsky received a B.A. in Physics summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Whitman College in 1973, and a Ph. D. in physics, specializing in x-ray astronomy, from the California Institute of Technology in 1978. An avid outdoorsman, Dr Priedhorsky has been President of the Los Alamos Mountaineers several times. Awards and Industry Recognition
• Laboratory Fellow, Los Alamos National Laboratories https://www.lanl.gov/• Fellow, American Physical Society https://www.aps.org/• Leo Szilard Award of the American Physical Society• Whitman College, Alumnus of the Year 1995. • Max Planck Fellow• Lyle Fellow, University of Melbourne, Australia• Visiting Scientist, Danish Space Research Institute• Elected Head, Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows• Fellow, Intelligence and Space Research division, LANL
From 1999 to 2007 he was Chief Scientist in the Nonproliferation and International Security Division, the International, Space, and Response Divisions, and the Threat Reduction Directorate, responsible for the health of basic and applied research in space science, proliferation detection, treaty monitoring, nuclear safeguards, and international technologies.
Dr. Priedhorsky received a B.A. in Physics summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Whitman College in 1973, and a Ph. D. in physics, specializing in x-ray astronomy, from the California Institute of Technology in 1978. An avid outdoorsman, Dr Priedhorsky has been President of the Los Alamos Mountaineers several times. Awards and Industry Recognition
• Laboratory Fellow, Los Alamos National Laboratories https://www.lanl.gov/• Fellow, American Physical Society https://www.aps.org/• Leo Szilard Award of the American Physical Society• Whitman College, Alumnus of the Year 1995. • Max Planck Fellow• Lyle Fellow, University of Melbourne, Australia• Visiting Scientist, Danish Space Research Institute• Elected Head, Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows• Fellow, Intelligence and Space Research division, LANL