Christopher E. Paine directs the Nuclear Program of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in Washington, DC, which he joined in June 1991 after five years with Senator Edward M. Kennedy; and is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he assisted successful efforts to end U.S. production of plutonium for weapons and underground nuclear test explosions. Long associated with congressional, public advocacy and legal efforts to end further nuclear arms development, reduce arsenals, and stop the spread of nuclear arms to other nations, from 1985-1987 Paine was a consultant to Princeton University’s Project on Nuclear Policy Alternatives, a Research Fellow-in-residence at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC, and a staff consultant for nuclear nonproliferation policy with the Subcommittee on Energy, Conservation & Power, U.S. House of Representatives.

Recently the work of his team at NRDC has involved assessing the potential role of nuclear power in decarbonizing global electricity production. He is the author or co-author of numerous NRDC reports, as well as some 70 articles on proliferation and national security policy in such publications as Scientific American, Nature, Arms Control Today, Science, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He is a 1974 graduate of Harvard University.