Samantha
Neakrase

Samantha Neakrase serves as a senior director of global nuclear policy at NTI. She leads and supports projects across a range of NTI’s programs, including strengthening global nuclear security, building and sustaining a world without nuclear weapons, reassessing nuclear deterrence, legal strategies for challenging the legality of nuclear weapons, and promoting rational nuclear policy and posture in the United States. She has also played a lead role in NTI’s congressional engagement.

Neakrase returned to NTI in mid-2024 after serving for three years as a senior advisor in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), including one year as senior advisor to the deputy administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation. While at NNSA, she worked on a diverse portfolio of nuclear security and nonproliferation topics, including U.S. industry outreach for nuclear security and safeguards for advanced and small modular reactors. She led interagency coordination for U.S. participation in the 2023 IAEA General Conference, served as DOE’s lead in the interagency preparations for the 2024 IAEA International Conference on Nuclear Security (ICONS), served on the U.S. negotiating team for the review conference for the Amended Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (A/CPPNM), and was the NNSA lead for initiatives to integrate nuclear security and nonproliferation into DOE and interagency nuclear power and climate change initiatives. She also was the DOE lead coordinator within the interagency process for implementation of the Biden administration’s countering WMD strategy, known as National Security Memorandum-19.

Neakrase joined NTI in 2012 and previously focused on projects across the spectrum of NTI’s nuclear policy work. She oversaw the 2016 and 2020 editions of the NTI Nuclear Security Index, played a lead role in NTI’s analysis for the Nuclear Security Summit process and the 2016 and 2020 ICONS, led multi-year Track 1.5 dialogues on nuclear security and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, co-led the Cyber Nuclear Weapons Study Group including co-writing the associated report, and coordinated NTI’s congressional outreach. She has written and spoken extensively on nuclear security topics and is an expert on international institutions and legal frameworks for nuclear security and nonproliferation, including the A/CPPNM.

Neakrase received an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School, a JD summa cum laude from Villanova University School of Law where she was elected to the Order of the Coif, and a BA from St. Olaf College where she majored in music and Asian studies. She previously was a mergers and acquisitions associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and clerked for the Honorable Maryanne Trump Barry on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.