Dale Klein

former University of Texas professor and nuclear engineer who is conversant in such topics as magneto-hydrodynamic flows and natural convection heat transfer within spent-fuel assemblies, Dale Klein has emerged as a key player in the Bush administration's national security plans for dealing with weapons of mass destruction.

Klein, who served as an adviser to the Bush campaign on nuclear issues, now oversees the Defense Department's research, development, and acquisition efforts in nuclear, chemical, and biological defense. Widely viewed as a team player by officials at the Homeland Security and Health and Human Services departments, he has been a champion of the administration's Project BioShield initiative, a multi-agency program conceived to boost the nation's preparedness for an attack involving biological weapons.

Among other things, Project BioShield would accelerate the development and distribution of vaccines and other medical products in the event of an emergency. Klein has worked to ensure that officials at DHS and HHS understand the Defense Department's requirements and capabilities for biological countermeasures.

Klein won kudos from General Accounting Office auditors for launching a reorganization of Defense's $1.4 billion research and development programs for chemical and biological defense. The programs include such areas as the development of protective equipment for troops on the battlefield, and of detection technologies and medical antidotes to be used in the event of contamination by, or exposure to, chemical or biological agents.

Klein has streamlined oversight of the programs and created a Joint Program Office for Chemical and Biological Defense to centrally manage them. GAO has warned repeatedly about scattered program management-its results seen, for example, in poor inventory control-that failed to reflect the high priority given to chemical and biological defense. Klein has pledged to fix the problems, and his reorganization efforts have earned him plaudits.

Klein earned bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in nuclear engineering from the University of Missouri.