David Okrent is Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. He worked at Argonne National Laboratory for twenty years, pioneering in fast reactor physics and safety. His honors and awards include: Guggenheim Fellow, 1961-62 and 1977-78, American Physical Society Fellow; and American Nuclear Society (ANS) Fellow. He received the first Argonne Universities Association Distinguished Appointment Award in 1970, the first ANS Tommy Thompson Award in nuclear reactor safety in 1980, the ANS Glenn Seaborg Award in 1987, and the ANS George C. Laurence Pioneering Award in 2007. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 1974 and held the Isaac Taylor Chair at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in 1977-78. Okrent served as Chairman and a member of the Statutory U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards from 1963-1987. In 1985, he received the USNRC Distinguished Service Medal.