Dr. Daniel Blumenthal, the Department of Energy Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Israel, has been awarded the prestigious 2022 Homeland Security and Emergency Response Section Service Award by the Health Physics Society in recognition of his contributions to the field of emergency preparedness and response.  The Society’s mission is to promote excellence in the science and practice of radiation safety.

Blumenthal joined the DOE Remote Sensing Laboratory at Andrews Air Force Base in 1996 as a scientist for its radiological emergency response teams, specializing in ground-based and aerial radiation detection.

He later managed the Nuclear Emergency Support Team’s (NEST) Consequence Management program, which is responsible for plume modeling, radiation monitoring, and medical responses to nuclear incidents and accidents.  In his role as a Senior Response Official, he led DOE's initial response team to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

Dr. Blumenthal’s volunteer activities include his election as a member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements and his long-time participation on its committee on Nuclear and Radiological Security and Safety.  He is a Fellow of the Health Physics Society and served a term as President of the Society’s Baltimore Washington Chapter.

As DOE’s first Energy Attaché in Israel, Blumenthal has worked to advance DOE’s policy interests in the region and promoted cooperation between the United States and Israel across a broad range of energy, science, and nonproliferation-related topics.

Dr. Blumenthal’s background is in experimental nuclear physics, with an emphasis on gamma-ray and charged particle spectroscopy.  He received his undergraduate degree in physics from Columbia College in 1985 and his doctorate in nuclear physics from Yale University in 1994.  Blumenthal held a post-doctoral fellowship at Argonne National Laboratory from 1994 to 1996 and became a board-certified Health Physicist in 2003.