Mary Wammack received her Ph.D. in History from UNLV in 2010. She is currently working on a book manuscript titled Atomic Governance: militarism, secrecy, and science in the post-war American state. It focuses how military officers and their supporters used the nuclear program to protect the domestic influence following the end of WWII, gaining enough autonomy over the program to deceive presidents and other elected officials about the hazards of mining, production, and experimentation. The result was the spread of radioactivity nationwide that caused enough illness and disease that in 1990 congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which has paid out at least $2,712,275,307 to over 57,000 people whose exposures caused them to contract radiogenic diseases. She is currently in the early stages of research into Allen v United States, a 1978 lawsuit brought by 1,100 Utah “downwinders,” and the subsequent trial presided over by United States District Judge Bruce S. Jenkins. In a landmark 1984 decision, Jenkins found the government liable for injuries to those who argued that they were harmed by the government and its contractors during the 1951-1963 period of weapons testing in Nevada. At 288 pages, Jenkins’ decision was notable for its extensive analysis not only of the legal foundations for his ruling, but also the history of the program, the field of radio-physics, and medicine. She teaches classes in American, European, and Ancient history.