Cheryl Rofer

Class of 1963, Expert on nuclear issues

For 35 years, Cheryl Rofer worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. She now is a source for reporters on nuclear weapons issues and popular on social media and the Nuclear Diner and Lawyers, Guns & Money blogs.

Rofer had an interest in science from an early age. “I just always loved science,” she said. “I wanted to be a scientist after I gave up wanting to be a fireman.”

She came to Ripon College from Closter, New Jersey. “I wanted to go to a liberal arts college, and Ripon was willing to accept me after my junior year in high school,” she said. “The pastor of my church, David Shirley (Class of 1936), recommended Ripon.”

At Ripon, Rofer majored in chemistry and mathematics. She earned a master’s degree in organic chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.

At Los Alamos, her early research focused on how photochemistry can be used to understand uranyl compounds. She later developed spectroscopic tools for isotope separation and supervised teams developing supercritical water oxidation for destruction of hazardous wastes, including chemical warfare agents, and developing methods of decommissioning nuclear weapons; and worked with countries of the former Soviet Union to clean up nuclear material.

In Estonia, she helped the government to get European Union funding to clean up a former Soviet uranium-processing site. In Kazakhstan, she built trust to allow a project to collect metallic plutonium left at the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site.

After retiring from Los Alamos in 2001, Rofer became involved in documenting nuclear history, including the Manhattan Project, the top-secret U.S. government research and development program at Los Alamos during World War II that successfully produced the world’s first nuclear weapons.

She also contributes articles and opinion pieces to numerous publications, and she is active on social media, with 25,000 followers on Bluesky, a microblogging platform. She also writes longer form pieces at the Nuclear Diner and Lawyers, Guns & Money blogs. Reporters regularly consult her for background on stories having to do with nuclear weapons.

Communicating online is an important tool for her, Rofer said. “I try to present accurate information on science-related issues, with particular expertise on nuclear weapons,” Rofer said. “Not very many people have that first-hand expertise, and there is a lot of misinformation online.”

Rofer served on Ripon College’s Board of Trustees from 1992 to 2009 and was presented with the Distinguished Alumni Citation in 1991.

“Several of my professors were extremely supportive throughout my college career and were role models with an uncompromising view of excellence,” Rofer said. “A sophomore writing course opened my mind to critical thinking. A liberal arts education helps me put events into a broader context for myself and my followers on social media.”