ORNL Director Thom Mason to Join Battelle as Lab Operations SVP

Thom Mason

Thom Mason, director of the Energy Department‘s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will step down from his position by July 1 after 10 years on the job to become senior vice president for laboratory operations at nonprofit research and development company Battelle.

He will help govern each Battelle-managed laboratory, engage key sponsors, contribute to capture management and lead strategic planning for the organization’s lab operations in his new role, ORNL said Friday.

A joint venture of Battelle and University of Tennessee currently manages the science and energy laboratory for DOE.

“Thom has been an exemplary scientific leader and we’re fortunate that he will continue to be engaged with Oak Ridge National Laboratory as he uses his experience and expertise to benefit DOE, Battelle and other labs where Battelle has a management role,” said Joe DiPietro, chairman of the board of governors of the UT-Battelle JV.

As director, Mason oversees ORNL’s R&D portfolio that spans fundamental research in physics, biology and chemistry; climate change; energy generation, distribution, and end use; and national security programs.

He is an experimental condensed matter physicist who joined ORNL in 1998 as director of the Spallation Neutron Source facility’s experimental facilities division and later served as associate laboratory director for SNS and the neutron sciences directorate.

Mason also held the roles of senior scientist at the Denmark-based Riso National Laboratory and assistant and associate professor of physics at the University of Toronto in Canada.

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