David M Keim

David M Keim

Chief Communications Officer

David Keim leads the Communications Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His responsibilities include media and community relations, internal communications, protocol visits, and lab events.

The Communications staff provides strategic support for ORNL leadership and provides science writing, technical editing, design, photography, and videography across ORNL, which is the largest science and energy laboratory in the Department of Energy’s National Laboratory System. During Keim's tenure, ORNL moved its website onto a Content Management System and the laboratory significantly increased promotion of lab science through video, photography, and social media.

In partnership with other DOE sites in Oak Ridge, Keim led the design team for a new American Museum of Science and Energy that opened in 2018, transforming a vacant commercial space into a multi-use attraction with all-new exhibits, videos, and interactive displays about the history and missions of ORNL, the Y-12 National Security Complex, and the historic K-25 site.

Before joining ORNL in March 2012, Keim was director of Public and Governmental Affairs at the Y-12, a National Nuclear Security Administration site in Oak Ridge, where he expanded media coverage, launched social media sites, and published a new annual Community Investment Report. Keim’s staff also coordinated dedication of the nation’s storehouse for weapons-grade uranium, the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, in March 2010.

Prior to joining the DOE complex, Keim was an editor and reporter for the Knoxville (Tennessee) News Sentinel, leading national award-winning coverage, launching the annual Book of Lists and monthly Greater Knoxville Business Journal, and appearing on national cable and local news broadcasts.

Outside of his ORNL responsibilities, Keim is chairman of the Distinguished Professionals Education Institute (dba Professionals Teach), which recruits professionals to teach in public school classrooms in Tennessee, and is a board member of Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee. He is a member of the Leadership Knoxville class of 2006 and the University of Tennessee Chancellor’s Associates class of 2010. He earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the honors college at Ohio University.