Associate Laboratories Director, National Security Programs
As the National Security Programs Associate Laboratory Director for Sandia National Laboratories, Dr. Kate Helean leads the National Security Program Portfolio, which stewards fundamental National Nuclear Security Administration capabilities and advances national security objectives through the delivery of trusted, threat-informed technologies, systems, science and expertise. She is responsible for fostering synergies between Sandia’s core nuclear deterrence capabilities and broader national security technology solutions while strengthening partnerships across the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community and Nuclear Security Enterprise to support the nation’s defense, deterrence and intelligence missions.
Previously, Kate served as Director for the Nuclear Deterrence Program Management & Executive Office at Sandia National Laboratories. In that role, she led the integration of strategy, program and processes for the Nuclear Deterrence (ND) portfolio and across the Nuclear Security Enterprise to enable the ND mission.
Before assuming that role, Kate served as Director of the Center for Microsystems Engineering, Science and Applications (MESA), which is the nation’s largest government-owned trusted foundry and is responsible for advanced microsystems research and development for a broad spectrum of national security missions and strategic radiation-hardened microelectronics production for the nuclear deterrent.
In support of these responsibilities, Kate also served as the lead director for Sandia’s Nanoscience to Microsystems Research Foundation, as a member of the Nuclear Weapons Engineering Council and as the director of the Science & Technology Products group within Sandia’s National Security Programs Division. Kate began her Sandia career in 2004 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship in Nuclear Engineering at the University of Michigan, where her research focused on radiation effects in materials. Prior to that, Kate conducted her doctoral studies in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Davis, where she researched the experimental thermodynamics of materials related to excess weapons plutonium.
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