Growing up amidst the cornfields and grasslands of the American Midwest, Stan Wullschleger’s fascination with plants bloomed early in life. It was this interest, along with an unquenchable curiosity and love of problem-solving, that led him to pursue a career in science.
Today, Wullschleger heads a unique directorate focused on translating fundamental science into solutions for some of society’s greatest challenges — from climate change to clean water to pollution caused by plastics and toxins.
“Tackling big challenges through big science is what ORNL was created to do,” Wullschleger said. “We are uniquely equipped to generate the knowledge and the technologies necessary to move the nation toward a brighter, more sustainable future.”
As head of the Biological and Environmental Systems Science Directorate, Wullschleger leads a diverse and inclusive organization focused on advancing understanding of the natural world and developing innovations that benefit the environment and grow the nation’s bioeconomy. Home to DOE’s Center for Bioenergy Innovation, the Climate Change Science Institute and two data centers focused on atmospheric and terrestrial science, the directorate brings together a range of capabilities. Researchers focus on critical goals such as optimizing microbes to convert plastics into valuable chemicals, breeding climate-resilient bioenergy crops and determining which genes allow plants to sequester more carbon.
“Our biggest breakthroughs come when researchers collaborate at the nexus of biology, Earth and environmental science,” Wullschleger said. “The multifaceted challenges we’re facing today call for an integrated approach that applies discoveries across scales from genes to ecosystems.”
This interdisciplinary approach has been a hallmark of Wullschleger’s career. As director of ORNL’s Climate Change Science Institute and previously as head of the Environmental Sciences Division, he oversaw research that addressed ecosystems, climate modeling and the resilience of environments.
Since 2010, he has also served as director and principal investigator for the Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments Arctic project, leading a team of 140 scientists from four national laboratories and three universities. Researchers conduct extensive fieldwork in remote parts of Alaska, gathering data to advance Earth system models that predict how thawing permafrost in a warming Arctic will impact regional and global climate systems.
Drawn to ORNL for its reputation, Wullschleger came to Oak Ridge in 1990 as a DOE Alexander Holleander Fellow with a drive to learn the secrets behind the laboratory’s distinctive success. Fast forward 30 years, and he now asserts it is the people and the cross-cutting collaboration that are key.
Wullschleger feels privileged to build on ORNL’s rich history in the biological and environmental sciences. He is also energized by the scientific challenges at hand.
“Scientific discovery has always been the primary motivating factor in my day-to-day work. It forms the heart of what drives me.” — Kim Askey
