Dale E. Klein, the Bob R. Dorsey Professor of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and vice chancellor for special engineering programs in the University of Texas system, will visit Cornell next week to present a lecture on "The Disposition of 50,000 American and Russian Nuclear Weapons."

The lecture will be Wednesday, Nov. 10, at 4:30 p.m. in Schwartz Auditorium of Rockefeller Hall. It is free and is open to the public. A Nuclear Science and Engineering Seminar, it is sponsored by Cornell's Ward Center for Nuclear Sciences, the Peace Studies Program and the Department of Science and Technology Studies.

Klein, who serves on several U.S. Department of Energy national committees, will discuss the technical and policy issues involved in the disposition of excess enriched uranium and weapons grade plutonium. After several decades of nuclear weapons buildup, the United States and the former Soviet Union are now reducing their nuclear weapons stockpiles. The United States is dismantling about 20,000 nuclear weapons, and Russia has agreed to withdraw about 30,000 nuclear warheads. This process started with two treaty agreements, the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Agreement and the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START). START II, which has not yet been ratified, and START III, which is still under preliminary discussions, likely will result in both countries maintaining significantly smaller nuclear weapons programs.

Since joining the University of Texas, Klein has received over $47 million in research funding, equipment and educational support. He has published more than 100 technical papers and reports and co-edited one book. He also has given more than 300 talks on energy.

Klein also is executive director and chairman of the Amarillo National Research Center, operated by a consortium made up of the Texas A&M university system, Texas Tech University and the University of Texas. He received his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of Missouri-Columbia.