Andy Oppenheimer


Andy Oppenheimer AIExpE MIABTI is a UK-based expert and consultant in counter-terrorism and CBRNE. He writes articles, edits journals, and gives presentations at conferences and professional seminars worldwide.

He has been editor of several journals on defence and security, including Chemical, Biological & Nuclear Warfare from 2009, Jane's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence and NBC International from 2006 to 2008, and was co-editor of Jane's World Armies from 2002 to 2004. He has served as a CBRN consultant for Jane's Consultancy Group and Oxford Analytica.

Personal life

Born in 1953, Andy grew up in Leeds and Liverpool and graduated from Liverpool University in 1974. He then moved to London and worked in popular science and academic publishing for over 20 years. He is not related to J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Professional career

During the 1980s and 1990s, Andy conducted research into nuclear weapons and the Cold War along with research into the Irish Republican Army and improvised explosive devices. He became a Member of the International Association of Bomb Technicians in 2008 and an Associate Member of the UK Institute of Explosives Engineers in 2011. His first book IRA: The Bombs and the Bullets – A History of Deadly Ingenuity covers 150 years of strategic, tactical, and operational details, with penetrating analysis of the IRA's mission, doctrine, targeting, and acquisition of weapons and explosives.

He is a Course Contributor to the University of St. Andrews Certificate of Terrorism Studies, conducted by the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, writing the CBRN Weapons in Terrorism Course Module in 2012 and the IEDs: Threats & Countermeasures Course Module in 2013, and continues to review and update other Modules in the Course. He has written for defence journals including Military Technology, RUSI Journal, Strategic Intelligence Review, Counter-IED Report, Langley Intelligence Group Network, Police Oracle, Explosives Engineering, and several Jane's Information Group publications from 2002 to 2006, including Jane's Terrorism & Security Monitor and Jane's Intelligence Digest.
Andy has made TV appearances and radio broadcasts as an expert on terrorism and CBRNE and acts as a consultant for films and documentaries.

Music

Andy Oppenheimer is also a singer-songwriter of electronic pop music since the early 1980s, when he formed Oppenheimer Analysis with producer Martin Lloyd, who had recorded as Analysis with Dave Rome. In 2005 Oppenheimer Analysis re-formed and released an EP of early material on the New York-based Minimal Wave label. The EP, which was Minimal Wave's first release, entered its fourth re-pressing in 2014. Martin Lloyd died in 2013.
Andy now writes and records songs as Touching the Void with veteran producer Mark Warner and as Oppenheimer MkII with producer Mahk Rumbae. Oppenheimer MkII released their first album The Presence of the Abnormal in 2012. The first Touching the Void album, Love, Longing and Loss is due for release in 2015, having released their first EP Obsession earlier in 2014 and the first single, Parallel Lives, in 2013.
Oppenheimer has also painted pictures from childhood and his surrealist works were featured in several exhibitions in London in the late 1990s.

Discography

A full list of Andy Oppenheimer's music releases can be viewed on Discogs

Albums