Dr. Macfarlane is currently an Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. She is also an affiliate of the Program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. She received her PhD in geology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992. She has held fellowships at the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College, the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University, and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. From 1998-2000 she was a Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Foundation fellow in International Peace and Security. She has served on National Academy of Sciences panels on nuclear energy and nuclear weapons issues. She is currently chair of the Science and Security Board of the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" and serves on the Keystone Center's Energy Board. Her research focuses on environmental policy and international security issues associated with nuclear energy, especially the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle. In 2006 MIT Press published her book, "Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation's High-Level Nuclear Waste", which explores the unresolved technical issues for nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.