The NNSA Graduate Fellowship Program: A Legacy In Nuclear Security Leadership Development

The year 2020 marked a monumental occasion for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Graduate Fellowship Program (NGFP): The program celebrated 25 years in operation building the next generation of NNSA and national security leaders. At the same time, the program faced the unprecedented task of transitioning into full-time remote operations. Thanks to its proven resilience in adapting to an ever-evolving threat environment, the program safely and securely transitioned online. Unique in size, structure, and approach, NGFP has become a premiere program for attracting high-quality graduate students to the complex world of nuclear security. This paper will outline the program’s history, evolution, and impact made possible by a refined, reliable, and replicable approach that is building experienced, next-generation professionals fit to serve the nation’s security missions. Since its humble beginnings of just three fellows supporting one NNSA mission space, NGFP has become a renowned institutional succession pipeline. Today, the program hires more than 60 fellows per year and serves nearly every NNSA program office. Having garnered interest from other national security stakeholders, the program has leveraged its agile management approach to incorporate assignments with the Department of State and Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Of the more than 550 fellows who have entered the program, approximately 85% accepted positions with ties to national security, and many still reside there today. The NGFP mission to build future leaders, along with each fellowship cohort’s commitment to grow and serve, revitalizes the nuclear security enterprise with a generation of agile, diversely skilled professionals. This paper proposes to collect and synthesize a variety of data, including historical program documents, surveys, recruiting statistics, and interviews, to identify the best practices and approaches that have been successful at recruiting, training, and retaining next-generation nuclear security leaders for over 25 years.