Laban Coblentz
Head of Communication
ITER Organization
Session: FORGING THE FUTURE
Laban's career crisscrosses multiple sectors of technology, education, and sustainable development. At the International Atomic Energy Agency from 2000 to 2008, he worked on nuclear diplomacy in Iraq, Iran, and other political hotspots – while also promoting hi-tech improvements to agricultural productivity, medicine, and groundwater management in developing countries. From the IAEA, he returned to New York to create new university- and community-based models for entrepreneurship, drawing on the Maker Movement and the democratization of advanced manufacturing. For the past 8 years, he has been the Head of Communication at ITER, in the south of France, where 35 countries are collaborating to make fusion power a practical reality for clean energy generation.