He served as Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory[1] from 1986 to 1997 and is now affiliated with Stanford University, where he is research professor emeritus in the Department of Management Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering, and senior fellow emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

[2] During this time, he was also elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering (1988) for outstanding research on plutonium and the forming of materials, and for leadership in developing energy and weapons systems.

[3] When his father had not returned from the war at the Eastern Front, his mother remarried and settled in Rottenmann, Austria.

[5][6] Hecker also acts as advisor to the Nuclear Threat Initiative board of directors and belongs to the advisory council of CRDF Global, an independent nonprofit organization that promotes international scientific and technical collaboration.

He has visited North Korea frequently in an unofficial capacity to assess the plutonium program at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center (once every year since 2004).