Christopher A Beatty
Chief Operating Officer, Fusion and Fission Energy and Science Directorate
Bio
Chris Beatty is the Chief Operating Officer for the Fusion and Fission Energy and Science Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
As FFESD’s senior operations leader, Chris ensures the directorate's operations align with the mission objectives and provides operational leadership and direction to directorate leadership. His role is directly responsible for enabling safe operations and exceptional programmatic performance.
Chris joined ORNL in 2011 to support the US ITER project, working as a field engineer, quality assurance engineer and senior systems engineer. In 2019, he was selected to join ORNL’s Mission Support Rotational Leadership Development Program where he was a member of the Senior Mission Support Staff, where he supported several key ORNL mission-support functions and responded to special projects originating in the Mission Support Directorates and the Lab Director’s Office.
Prior to coming to ORNL, Chris worked for Jacobs Technology at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. He supported the Constellation Program as a senior systems engineer and team lead for the Systems Engineering team and Computational Fluid Dynamics team, supporting loss-of-crew and loss-of-mission calculations. Chris also worked for TYBRIN Corporation, supporting the Space and Missile Defense Command at the Kwajalein Missile Test Range, where he performed trajectory and debris analysis for launch vehicles and missiles. Chris also completed the Range Safety Analysis for the first SpaceX Falcon 1 launch from Kwajalein.
Chris is committed to professional development and community engagement, as reflected through his active participation in various organizations. He is a member of 100 Black Men of Greater Knoxville Inc., where he served as president from 2017 to 2022, mentoring young men from single-parent homes. He is also a dedicated member of the National Society of Black Engineers, the National Society of Black Physicists, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Project Management Institute.