Science on Screen ®
Film / Lecture / Q&A
Wednesday, June 21 at 7pm
DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I
LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB
with Scientist Susan Pepper, Brookhaven
National Laboratory
featuring a screening of the Stanley Kubrick
classic
Starring Peter Sellers & George C. Scott
Members $10 / Public $15
Join scientist Susan Pepper from Brookhaven
National Laboratory for an entertaining and exciting evening exploring Stanley
Kubrick’s classic comedy as well as the timely issues it raises. At a
moment when the US and Russia are once again engaging in nuclear brinksmanship,
the number of nations with nuclear weapons is growing, and arms control
treaties are becoming an endangered species, Kubrick’s brilliant. hilarious
political satire remains as relevant as when it first premiered in 1964.
With the Soviet Union and U.S. on the verge of
nuclear war, it only takes one loony general (Sterling Hayden), a
Pentagon war room populated by maniacs (including an unhinged George C.
Scott, with Peter Sellers playing the president, an RAF officer, and
a Nazi scientist), and a patriotic B-52 bomber pilot carrying an atomic payload
(the iconic Slim Pickens) to begin our mutual destruction. Crisply
directed by Kubrick with the relentless pace of a thriller, Dr.
Strangelove is not just a great black comedy, but one of the greatest
films of all time. (USA, 1964, 95 min., b/w, DCP)
Susan Pepper is the Chair of the Nonproliferation &
National Security Department (NNS) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. NNS
carries out research and development of radiation detectors, provides technical
support and training to international organizations and other countries, builds
prototype detection systems, and provides expert radiological assistance to
further U.S. government initiatives and policies in nuclear materials
safeguards and security, arms control treaty verification, and nonproliferation
of weapons of mass destruction.
Pepper has worked at BNL for almost 40 years, having started
as an intern and joining the staff as a staff engineer in the Department of
Nuclear Energy. She joined the International Safeguards Project Office
(ISPO) at BNL in 1993 and soon after, took an assignment in Vienna, Austria, as
the ISPO Liaison Officer to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Department
of Safeguards. When she returned to Brookhaven, she became the head of ISPO, a
position she held for more than a decade. In this capacity, Pepper worked
extensively with the IAEA to provide its Department of Safeguards with the
tools it needs to track nuclear material effectively and efficiently under the
terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. She created an internship program
in the IAEA Department of Safeguards to recruit students and recent graduates
for temporary positions where they could work side by side with more senior
staff and gain valuable experience. Her work in recent years has been
primarily focused on the management of the department and increasing awareness
of career opportunities in the field of international safeguards and helping to
build the next generation of safeguards experts.
About Science on Screen
Brookhaven
National Laboratory has partnered up with the Huntington Cinema Arts Centre for
its 2023 Science on Screen program.
Science on Screen gives experts in science, technology, and
medical fields an opportunity to present classic, cult, or documentary movies
that serve as a jumping off point to discuss their research, and is made
possible by the Coolidge Corner Theatre
Foundation with major support from the Alfred
P. Sloan Foundation.
