Education, Professional Activities & Awards

Background information, education, and biographical details about D. Warner North, expert in risk analysis and decision science.

Education

Ph.D., Operations Research, Stanford University (1970)

  • Decision theory, decision analysis, optimization theory and mathematical programming, probabilistic systems modeling and analysis, economics.
  • Dissertation research involved the theoretical unification of entropy characterization and sufficient statistics characterization of families of probability distributions.

M.S., Physics (1963) and Mathematics (1966), Stanford University.

B.S., Physics, Yale University (1962).

Awards & Recognition

  • Recipient of the Frank P. Ramsey Medal from the Decision Analysis Society in 1997 for lifetime contributions to the field of decision analysis. The citation for this award recognized contributions to public sector applications of decision analysis, particularly those involving environmental protection.
  • Outstanding Risk Practitioner Award From the Society for Risk Analysis, 1999
  • Presidential Appointee to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board following nomination by the National Academy of Sciences, 1989-May 1994.
  • National Science Foundation Fellowships in physics (1962-4), mathematics (1965-7).

Professional Memberships

Society for Risk Analysis

  • Chair of the Advisory Board, 1999-2000
  • President, 1991-1992
  • Past member of the national council
  • Past President of Northern California chapter
  • Chair, Advisory Board, 1998-2000
  • Member of the editorial boards of Risk Analysis, Risk Abstracts -Area Editor for Risk Analysis, 2008 - 2019.

Society of Decision Professionals

Sigma Xi, Phi Beta Kappa

Professional Seminars and Presentations

  • Over fifty seminars in decision analysis, risk assessment, capital expenditure analysis, and related subjects for analysts and executives in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Invited presentations, lectures, and testimony for a variety of professional societies, conferences, academic audiences, public utility commissions, Congressional committees, and other legislative bodies.

Sustainable Fuel Cycle Task Force

Dr. North serves as a member of the Science Panel of this group, which was established following the Obama Administration's actions to curtail further activity on the proposed repository for high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

Information on the Task Force and its Science Panel has been available on its website sustainablefuelcyclesciencepanel.org.

The Science Panel has sent letters, most recently to Secretary of Energy Wright (letter dated July 8, 2025) recommending the restoration of a highly functioning program to meet DOE’s legal responsibility to manage and dispose of the nation’s commercial and legacy defense spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).

Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future

Warner North testified before the House Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, Feb 1, 2012 on the Blue Ribbon Commission's Final Report to the Secretary of Energy.

A perspective article based on this testimony was published in Risk Analysis January 2013: "Can Sisyphus Succeed? Getting U.S. High-Level Nuclear Waste into a Geological Repository," Risk Analysis 33(1):2-14, 2013.

Warner North was an invited participant at the meeting of the Disposal Subcommittee of the Commission in Washington, D.C. on September 1, 2010. This presentation to the Blue Ribbon Commission was as an individual invited by the Commission, and not connected with his activities with the Sustainable Fuel Cycle Task Force Science Panel. Similarly, his testimony to the House Subcommittee on February 1, 2012 was as an individual invited by the Subcommittee.

International Risk Governance Council (IRGC)

From March 2006 to June 2012 Dr. North served on the Scientific and Technical Council of the International Risk Governance Council.

He authored two chapters in the book Global Risk Governance: Concepts and Practice Using the IRGC Framework.

He has served as review coordinator for IRGC Policy Briefs on Regulation of Carbon Capture and Storage and Risk Governance Guidelines for Bioenergy Policies, and the Opinion Piece for IRGC by M. Granger Morgan and Katharine Ricke, Cooling the Earth Through Solar Radiation Management: The need for research and an approach to its governance.

In 2011 Dr. North led the development of a Concept Note, **Improving the Management of Emerging Risks.

Risk from Toxic Substances: NS3, Symposia Presentations

Dr. North served as a member of the planning committee and speaker for the Naphthalene State of the Science Symposium October 8-12, 2006 in Monterey, California. The proceedings of this symposium were published in 2008 in a supplementary volume of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology.

Dr. North gave the "State of the Science" paper on decision analysis, multicriteria decision analysis, and cost-benefit analysis at the Contemporary Concepts in Toxicology (CCT) Workshop on Probabilistic Risk Assessment, "Bridging Components Along the Exposure-Dose-Response Continuum," sponsored by the Society of Toxicology, Washington, D.C., July 25-27, 2005.

Energy Security, especially in the Baltic Region

Dr. North chaired a session on energy security in the Baltic Region at the International Association of Energy Economists (IAEE) Meeting in Vilnius August 27, 2010.

NATO Workshop, 2009

Dr. North participated in this one-day Workshop, in Vilnius, Lithuania on October 16, 2009.

OSCE, 2006

Dr. North gave an invited presentation, "Energy Security in the Baltic Region: Issues Motivating Improvement in International Cooperation on Risk Governance" as part of a Conference, Security and Risk Management in Europe, of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in association with the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC), in the Senate of the Kingdom of Belgium, Brussels, April 18-19, 2006.

Russia, 2006

Dr. North was an invited speaker for the Risk Management Conference in Moscow March 1, 2006 organized by the Russian electric utility joint stock company, RAO-"United Energy Systems." Dr. North gave a paper on energy security for Lithuania at the SEIF-IV Conference in Brussels November 16-18, 2005. He presented a similar paper more focused on analytical tools at the VNIIGAZ-GAZPROM meeting on risk management in Moscow February 1-2, 2006.

Phytosanitary Risk

Dr. North gave the keynote address at the First International Symposium on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Risk Methodology, organized by Tuskegee University under sponsorship from the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), and the Society for Risk Analysis, Washington D.C., August 11-13, 2005.