Dr. Abraham Van Luik, a senior physical scientist at the Energy Department who since 2010 led the Carlsbad Field Office’s International Repository Science Program, died July 9 in the remote town of Faywood, N.M., according to obituary notices posted online and a DOE spokesperson.
Van Luik, who was born in the Netherlands and worked for 25 years on the now-defunct Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada, was 71. The DOE spokesperson reached for comment could not immediately confirm the cause of Van Luik’s death, which the local Carlsbad Current-Argus newspaper reported was unexpected.
Funeral services were pending at the Terrazas Funeral Chapels in Santa Clara, N.M., as of Friday, according to a note on the funeral home’s website.
In his most recent role with DOE, Van Luik worked for the agency’s Carlsbad Field Office, which oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) transuranic waste disposal facility some 25 miles east of Carlsbad, N.M. There, Van Luik “supported the DOE Office of Environmental Management and Nuclear Energy radioactive waste management program plans and international exchanges for developing and operating geological repositories,” the agency DOE wrote in a note posted online Tuesday.
Van Luik became a civil servant in 1995, when he joined DOE as a senior policy adviser. He held that position until August 2010, when he joined the Carlsbad Field Office, according to a copy of his resume uploaded to his personal website.
The Netherlands native began his decades-long association with DOE, and nuclear waste disposal, in 1978 as a contractor for Rockwell Hanford Operations, according to his resume. Other stops across the DOE nuclear complex included the Argonne National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Yucca Mountain.
Van Luik earned his doctorate in physical chemistry at Utah State University in 1978, and a bachelor’s of science in chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1972, according to his resume and LinkedIn profile.
A collection of Van Luik’s personal writings and photographs remains online at his personal website, thoughtsandplaces.org.