Jeffrey Hughes

Jeffrey L. Hughes served at the National Security Council at the White House under President Reagan from 1986-1989 and President Obama from 2009-2011. He was a Member of the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department under Secretary Baker from 1989 to 1993. At the US Department of Energy, he served as an advisor in the Office of the Secretary under five Secretaries between 1993 and 2017. He also worked for Sandia National Laboratories. One focus of Hughes’ work dealt with securing nuclear weapons materials, including the U.S.-Russia HEU Purchase Agreement. He finished his career in government as Senior Advisor for national security to Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and was co-chair of the Secretary’s Task Force to successfully implement the Iran Nuclear Agreement from 2015-2017. Hughes later consulted for the Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington, DC. He is now co-director of The Megatons to Megawatts Evaluation Project, an initiative of the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity of Columbia University, and is the author of Megatons Into Megawatts: The Deal Eliminating 20,000 Atomic Bombs (2025). Prior to his career in government, he published chapters in The Origins and Prevention of Major Wars (Cambridge, 1989) and Dominant Powers and Subordinate States (Duke, 1986). He has a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a master’s degree from Stanford University.