Stephen Ashby, who has led the Pacific Northwest National Institute for the past decade, has resigned from his role.
PNNL, managed by Batelle on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), announced the Ashby transition on April 14th.
His successor has not been decided, and Batelle will conduct a nationwide search for around four to eight months. However, once a new Laboriktor is appointed, Ashby “considers a new leadership position with Batelle as Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnership to help manage the institute’s portfolio.”
“When I began my career at DOE as a graduate student, I never imagined to honor leading one of that great national labs. That was the highlight of my career,” Ashby said in a statement. “We are proud of everything we have achieved and look forward to seeing PNNL continue to deliver incredible results for our country.”
The lab has an annual research budget of $1.6 billion and employs 6,400 people, with about 2,000 people at the lab’s North Richland campus a decade ago. Several new research facilities have been built or are currently under construction during Ashby’s tenure, with all of the billion-dollar campus transformation efforts.
Ashby’s records include maintaining a consistent top rating between PNNL’s DOE laboratories, building partnerships with six joint laboratories and five universities, and expanding the laboratory’s research portfolio in areas such as chemistry, geoscience, energy, biology, and data science.
“As Batel’s longest-enforced lab director, Steve has built a remarkable legacy of scientific discoveries, which has helped advance the health, safety and prosperity of our country.” “We are grateful to Steve for his decade of leadership at PNNL and look forward to further benefiting from his knowledge and expertise as he plays an expanded role in our national laboratory management team.”
