Laban L. Coblentz (born July 21, 1961) is an American writer, educator, science policy adviser, international civil servant, and entrepreneur. Since 2015, Coblentz has served as the Head of Communication of ITER, the international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject.
Early life and schooling
Home life Coblentz was raised in a pacifistic and insular Amish Mennonite community in Hartville, Ohio. Although the community as a whole was skeptical of higher education and advanced technology, Coblentz has described his father, Alvin S. Coblentz, as a "self-taught researcher, educator, and 'technologist' of sorts: a watch and clock repairman." A biography of Alvin describes his design of a mechanical device that enabled the operation of an automobile accelerator and brake with a single pedal, compensating for his physical disability and allowing him to get a driver's license.
Malone University Despite pressure from his church leaders to be content with a high-school education, Coblentz attended Malone University, a nearby Quaker college, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Psychology in 1982. At Malone, Coblentz took up journalism and fiction, becoming the editor of the campus newspaper and the literary magazine. He also dabbled in theater – a creative outlet that had been forbidden during his early years – taking leading roles in four consecutive university productions, and writing and directing his first play, The Playground.
United States Navy Shortly after leaving Malone, Coblentz enlisted in the United States Navy, a decision that led to excommunication from his Amish Mennonite congregation. From 1983 to 1985 he studied reactor physics, nuclear propulsion engineering and radiochemistry at the Naval Nuclear Power School in Orlando and a small reactor prototype in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. This was his first exposure to advanced technology, a shift in focus that would impact his subsequent research and career. He then spent four years aboard the , a Sturgeon-class nuclear submarine.
Scholarship: tracing the nexus of scientific reasoning and literary symbolism While in the Navy, Coblentz began working on a Master of Arts degree in English from San Francisco State University. His research was heavily influenced by his conversations with the inventor and philosopher Arthur M. Young at the Institute for the Study of Consciousness in Berkeley; ideas on gender and ethnicity put forward by Kim F. Hall, with whom Coblentz studied at Georgetown University; and studies of modernist and postmodernist literary criticism with Professor Geoffrey Green at SFSU. Coblentz's thesis explored parallels between the thought systems underlying subatomic physics and the postmodernist use of symbol.Coblentz, Laban. Beyond Kute Korrespondences: Intersections in The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer. San Francisco: San Francisco State University Collections. 1995. “Like the apocalyptic prophets of the death of literature,” Coblentz wrote, “some physicists have operated in hopes of bringing their work to a closure, speaking of a near future when, with the origins of the material universe explained and the last frontier conquered, physics will become a closed discipline.”
Science and symbolism in Renaissance England Coblentz's research systematically traces the interplay between scientific reasoning and literary movements – particularly the use of symbol, myth, and language – from the mid-16th century to the present. He dissects the intersection of science, symbol, and public policy in this era, characterizing the “science of natural law” as a tool manipulated by the powerful: “The established symbolic order of things … took on the weight of divine utterance. Careful manipulation of symbol along archetypal lines allowed individuals and countries to embody the archetypes they invoked. Symbol, properly configured, reinforced the power of the queen; slightly realigned, it fortified King James I.”
Policy implications: gender, ethnicity, imperialism To illustrate this assertion, Coblentz examines the symbolism and pseudo-science applied to the archetypal “Other” – particularly to blacks and women – as England entered the 17th century:
In the English Renaissance cosmology of “natural correspondences” and “self-evident truth,” white skin was superior to black just as day follows night; conveniently, the globe was constructed with Europe above and Africa below (and hell, presumably, below that)…. On the scale of gender, the disreputable qualities of changeability, insanity, and hysteria were virtues female in nature. Female disorderliness … was first evidenced by Eve’s illicit fit of munchies with the serpent in Eden …. Reason (and more broadly – as Baconian science expanded the definition – linear thinking, empirical objectivity, emotional passivity) was a province naturally male, and intuition (non-rational thought, “sixth” senses, and emotional involvement) more naturally feminine.
Modern science and technology: an inherited imbalance Moving from the historical to the postmodern, Coblentz argues that similar irrational motivations continue to plague contemporary science, scientists, and science policy – irrationality traceable, in part, to an ongoing battle between science and religion or faith.
If God is one with Nature, but above man’s comprehension, then Nature is a mystery, and science will always be imperfect. If God has placed man over Nature, and objective investigation holds the key, then Nature is accessible, and science will eventually figure it out. It is as simple as that.
Coblentz argues that the Einstein-Bohr debates and the Copenhagen Interpretation were rooted in epistemology, not strictly physics or mathematics, and thus ultimately led to a search for new forms of language and expression.
This epistemological struggle is also, for the individual scientist, a psychological (even a Freudian) battleground – a threat to the scientist’s view of himself. The Einsteinian’s insistent refusal to accept Bohr’s ambiguities is an insistence born of panic – the panic of the dispassionate objectivist (who is neither dispassionate nor objective except by his inherited white male tradition) forced to face a Void (or, if you like, a Womb) he cannot penetrate, forced to accept truth without explanation, a ‘non-material’ ‘non-thing’ ‘non-inhabiting’ ‘non-space’ that nevertheless demands acknowledgement (notice that language necessarily breaks down; there are no words, and therefore no tools of discovery).
These theories – drawing on Coblentz's divergent early background in communication, psychology, and nuclear physics – became the lens through which he came to view advanced science and technology. They would increasingly shape his career and particularly his public policy contributions in areas ranging from sustainable development and nuclear non-proliferation to higher education, technology transfer, and entrepreneurship.
Career
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Upon exiting the Navy, Coblentz worked briefly at the Waterford Nuclear Generating Station in southern Louisiana, then became a health physics and engineering safety inspector for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, primarily at West Coast nuclear facilities.
Public education on nuclear issues Coblentz was asked to develop a specialized communications course for nuclear inspectors, and eventually headed a nationwide overhaul of the nuclear inspection reporting system. The resulting approach, as delineated in the NRC Inspection Manual Chapter 0610, has been incorporated into multiple national nuclear regulatory frameworks. It was during this time that he developed close professional ties to E. Gail de Planque, the NRC Commissioner and former head of the Department of Energy's Environmental Measurements Laboratory, with whom Coblentz worked to improve the quality of public education on nuclear technology and transparency in nuclear activities.
Risk-informed, performance-based regulation During Coblentz's tenure at the NRC, he worked on efforts to reform three additional policy areas: the protection of nuclear whistleblowers, the consistency of NRC enforcement actions (violations, civil penalties, and shutdown orders), and the formal incorporation of risk analysis into regulatory oversight and, subsequently, into nuclear power plant operation and maintenance. By this time, Coblentz's work had come to the attention of the new NRC Chairman, Shirley Ann Jackson, appointed by President Clinton in 1995, and he was working as Jackson's speechwriter and external relations adviser. A major challenge confronting the Commission was the counterproductive economic and safety impact of burdensome regulations that had accumulated over decades, coupled with continuing inconsistent safety performance at some nuclear facilities – which inevitably led to additional regulations. Under Jackson's leadership, Coblentz and his colleagues developed a methodology for incorporating risk into regulation, inspection, and enforcement. Jackson would come to call this “risk-informed, performance-based regulation.”
Following the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, nuclear power plants had been required to conduct a comprehensive probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) of their facility, but these assessments had largely remained on the shelf, as no method had been devised of incorporating them formally into nuclear regulation, operation, or maintenance. The “risk-informed, performance-based” approach, while still emphasizing safety performance as the bottom line, provided a system for prioritizing regulatory inspection and enforcement – as well as rulemaking and licensing – in accordance with the relative degree of risk of the associated nuclear systems, structures, components, and activities. The goal was two-fold: to provide a defensible basis for regulatory oversight, and to encourage nuclear power plant operators to focus their greatest attention and resources in areas of greatest safety significance.
The change in approach required three elements: (1) an exhaustive analysis of the scenarios that could give rise to nuclear accidents (already accomplished for most plants via PRA); (2) the integration of risk analysis with public concerns, Congressional mandates, and other factors; (3) the designation of performance limits that, if adhered to, would acceptably protect against the identified risks.
International nuclear programs Coblentz and an NRC colleague, Janice Dunn Lee, also supported Jackson in the development of the International Nuclear Regulators Association (INRA). Coblentz later became Jackson's adviser on the NRC's international programs, offering bilateral assistance to developing countries in the formulation of legal and regulatory frameworks, the installation of nuclear medical facilities, and safety and security at nuclear power plants. Coblentz worked with the regulators and operators of post-Soviet states to upgrade inspection and enforcement programs and associated communication protocols.
U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs
The e-Government Initiative