Joyce Connery is a distinguished fellow at the Nuclear Energy Policy Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center.
Connery retired from the US Federal government on January 31, 2025, after over twenty-three years of service. She now owns and operates her own consulting firm, Connery Strategies. Her last federal position was as chair of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, a position to which she was appointed on January 20, 2021 by US President Joe Biden, making that her second term leading the Board. Connery was first confirmed to her position in August 2015 and was designated chairman by US President Barack Obama. In January 2017, US President Donald Trump designated a new chairman, but Connery remained on the Board.
Prior to her confirmation, Connery was the director of nuclear energy policy within the Office of International Economics on the National Security Council under Obama. In that position, Connery worked to develop policy among agencies and align and coordinate programs covering nuclear safety, security, and nuclear trade. Previously, Connery served as senior policy advisor to the deputy secretary of energy. Prior to that post, she was the director for threat reduction and nuclear energy cooperation in the office of the weapons of mass destruction coordinator at the National Security Council. She served under both the Bush and Obama administrations and was responsible for nuclear Cooperative Threat Reduction programs, the Nuclear Security Summit, the president’s four-year effort to secure vulnerable nuclear materials, international nuclear energy policy, and bilateral nuclear security and trade agreements.
Connery has also served as senior policy advisor to the assistant secretary for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration and worked in various other capacities within that organization. She served in Kazakhstan for two years, first as the Department of Energy’s nonproliferation representative for the US embassy and then as the onsite project manager for the shutdown of the BN-350 fast breeder reactor.
Connery holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Tufts University and a master of arts in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School. She is a 2017 graduate of the University of Virginia’s Sorensen Public Leadership Program. Connery also received a master’s degree in social work from George Mason University in 2023.
Connery has received numerous awards over the course of her career, including the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Silver Medal and the Secretary of Energy’s Distinguished Service Award. She was a finalist for the 2012 Service to America Medal for National Security and International Relations. In 2013, she received a Presidential Citation from the American Nuclear Society, and in 2015, she was recognized with a Meritorious Achievement Award from the Nuclear Infrastructure Council.
Connery is an active member of the American Nuclear Society, sits on the advisory board of the Idaho National Laboratory’s National and Homeland Security Directorate, is on the board of HopeLink Behavioral Health, and is currently the chair of the board of the Hylton Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia.
