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March 25, 2013The head of the nation's biggest science and engineering lab will leave the Oak Ridge facility this summer to take on another job with the company that operates the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Dr. Thom Mason, who has headed ORNL for the past decade, will take on a new role as senior vice president for Laboratory Operations at Battelle in Columbus, Ohio. Battelle, in partnership with the University of Tennessee, has managed and operated ORNL for the U.S. Department of Energy since April 2000.
"Thom has been an exemplary scientific leader and we're fortunate that he will continue to be engaged with Oak Ridge National Laboratory as he uses his experience and expertise to benefit DOE, Battelle, and other labs where Battelle has a management role," said University of Tenneseee President Joe DiPietro, chairman of the UT-Battelle board of governors.
At ORNL, Mason has worked to commercialize lab discoveries across the country, including Chattanooga, where ORNL recently opened an office in the downtown Innovation District.
Mason is an experimental condensed matter physicist by training and came to ORNL in 1998 to work on the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), a facility that was under construction to serve scientists worldwide. He soon assumed responsibility for completion of the $1.4 billion project.
SNS and its sister neutron facility, the High Flux Isotope Reactor, solidified ORNL's role as the leading source of neutrons for scientific research in the U.S., which recently welcomed its 20,000th scientific user.
Battelle has a substantial management role at six DOE labs and one lab for the Department of Homeland Security.
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., called Mason "a transformational leader " at ORNL who has helped upgrade the lab and expand its impact.
"During his tenure, Thom has led Oak Ridge to new heights in supercomputing, science, nuclear energy, and advanced manufacturing," Alexander said.