2023 Undergraduate Fellow Spotlight: Tessa Marker
Tessa Marker is a rising junior at Middlebury College where she is pursuing a degree in International Politics & Economics with a minor in Spanish. While studying in Vermont, she became interested in human rights protection and its cross-cutting connection to economics and conflict prevention. She is particularly interested in Latin America, especially since she will be studying abroad in Brazil and Argentina next year to enhance her Portuguese and Spanish language skills. Through her work as an intern for the Rohatyn Global Scholars Program at Middlebury, she learned about the Undergraduate Fellowship opportunity at CNS and is looking forward to engaging with nonproliferation work, specifically focusing on international treaties and legislation, this summer. In her free time, Tessa enjoys playing frisbee, painting, running and listening to music with her friends.
Research Presentation: How the Bomb was Made
This project will examine the environmental and humanitarian side effects of the creation of the W80 mod 1, a two-stage thermonuclear bomb which began development in by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976. To understand the magnitude of the side effects of the development of this bomb, I will look at the locations where uranium was mined, milled and enriched, where plutonium was produced, where these materials were assembled into a weapon and where they were tested. My goal is to create a map alongside my presentation that tracks the locations/possible locations where resources were extracted to make the W80.