In his role as associate lab director, Moe Khaleel will oversee efforts in nuclear security, nonproliferation, biosecurity, cybersecurity, grid security and security for manufacturing, autonomous systems and other emerging fields. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
Moe Khaleel has been selected to lead the National Security Sciences Directorate, or NSSD, at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In his role as associate lab director, he will oversee efforts in nuclear security, nonproliferation, biosecurity, cybersecurity, grid security and security for manufacturing, autonomous systems and other emerging fields.
“I am excited about working with the NSSD staff at the forefront of addressing national security challenges, and I look forward to the accomplishments we are going to make,” Khaleel said.
Khaleel has served as deputy for projects since April 2020, responsible for the largest project portfolio in DOE’s Office of Science. For the past year he has also served as interim deputy for science and technology, helping ORNL to meet all notable outcomes set by DOE.
In his previous position as associate lab director for Energy and Environmental Sciences, Khaleel led 600 staff members responsible for annual research of over $300 million for multiple DOE offices. Under his leadership, the directorate grew in staffing and impact, applying ORNL research in areas including biosecurity, secure additive manufacturing and cyberphysical security for the electrical grid and autonomous systems.
“Moe’s impact since coming to ORNL in 2015 reflects his passion for the Laboratory, its missions and our commitment to solving the most difficult scientific and technical challenges,” said ORNL Director Thomas Zacharia. “We are fortunate to have a scientific leader of his caliber to steward our national security mission.”
Before coming to ORNL, Khaleel held a variety of technical and senior leadership positions at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, building capabilities in visual data analysis and high-performance, data-intensive computing for national security, energy and scientific discovery. In a decade as director of PNNL’s computational sciences and mathematics division, he led programs in computational biology and bioinformatics, atmospheric radiation measurement, data-intensive computing, high-performance computing, applied mathematics and computational materials and engineering.
Khaleel received his doctorate in structural mechanics from Washington State University and an MBA from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. He is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
