Sandia News

Sandia National Laboratories has an expert for you, from computing and artificial intelligence to energy and the environment; from homeland security and military defense to nanotechnology and robotics. To request an interview with one of our experts, call or email the associated Media Relations contact. Experts are based in Albuquerque, N.M., unless otherwise noted.

Artificial Intelligence

William M. Severa specializes in machine learning, deep learning, artificial intelligence, neural computing and mathematics. He provides expertise on intelligent power-constrained systems, including self-driving and autonomous vehicles, satellites and edge/embedded computers. He has published more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and currently sits on the International Conference on Neuromorphic Systems program committee.

Contact: Troy Rummler

Biological and Chemical Security

Bradley Dickerson manages Sandia’s Global Chemical and Biological Security group which enhances U.S. national security by developing and implementing innovative solutions for countering global, biological and chemical threats. He has experience developing national strategies to prevent, prepare for, respond to, mitigate and recover from an intentional chemical or biological attack or a large scale natural disease outbreak.

Contact:  Mollie Rappe

Community Education

Amy Tapia manages Sandia’s Community Involvement team and is responsible for employee and corporate giving, volunteerism and K-12 STEM (science, technology, education and math) educational outreach. Tapia has been involved in education to encourage young students to pursue STEM careers for 20 years. She is an Albuquerque native and a1999 Leadership Albuquerque graduate, she serves on the CNM Foundation, and has most recently been volunteering as a mentor and Court Appointed Special Advocate, or CASA.

Contact:  Luke Frank

Computing

High-Performance Computing

Michael A. Heroux offers expertise in supercomputing, quantum computing, exascale computing, international parallel computing initiatives, scientific software, high-performance computing and benchmarks. He is director of software technology for the U.S. Exascale Computing Project.

Contact: Troy Rummler

Neurocomputing

Brad Aimone

Brad Aimone is a computational neuroscientist whose expertise focuses on theoretical neuroscience of memory, design of neural computing architectures and neural machine-learning algorithms, and the application of neural computing to high-performance computing systems.

Contact: Neal Singer

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity (Livermore, CA)

Cindy Veitch has led large-scale cybersecurity R&D programs for the federal government with research ranging from rigorous cyber experimentation for high-consequence national security systems to software vulnerability research and foundational data science

Contact: Michael Langley

Earth Science

Daniel Bowman communicates a keen understanding of a diverse range of geoscience topics, including meteors, dust devils and earthquake sounds. A geophysicist and atmospheric scientist, he studies low-frequency sound using microphones on high-altitude balloons and is the inventor of the Heliotrope solar hot air balloon. His interests include the sounds of Earth and the other planets (particularly Mars and Venus), the dynamics of Earth’s stratosphere and troposphere and long-duration balloon flights.

Contact: Kristen Meub

Energy

Battery Abuse Testing Laboratory

Joshua Lamb has extensive expertise working with lithium ion batteries in battery abuse and safety testing research for vehicle electrification and other large-scale applications. He also has considerable experience in thermal runaway of lithium ion batteries, battery failure, battery fire, vehicle electrification and more.

Contact: Troy Rummler

Biofuels (Livermore, CA)

John Gladden leads Sandia California’s biofuel research programs.

Contact: Paul Rhien

Hydrogen Technologies (Livermore, CA)

Chris LaFleur is a fire protection engineer with 25 years of expertise in fire protection, risk management and engineering experience addressing fire risk in emerging technologies, hydrogen safety, fire probabilistic risk assessment, nuclear power plant fire risk and more. She is the chair of the National Fire Protection Association 2 Hydrogen Technologies Code and serves on the technical committee for NFPA 13 Standard for the Installation of Sprinkler Systems.

Contact: Michael Langley

Renewable Energy & Smart Grid

Ross Guttromson offers in-depth expertise in electric grid power systems through his extensive research on transmission system planning and expansion, including smart-grid interfaces, advanced operations, stochastic optimization and wide-area stability and control. He is currently researching the effects of high-altitude electromagnetic pulse effects on the electric power system. He holds two patents and has authored numerous publications.

Contact: Kristen Meub

Solar

Concentrating Solar Power

Clifford K. Ho is a mechanical engineer with Sandia’s Concentrating Solar Power Program with expertise in high-temperature receivers and large-scale energy storage technologies.

Contact: Mollie Rappe

Photovoltaics

Joshua S. Stein conducts multidisciplinary research on the performance and reliability of photovoltaic energy systems with the aim of breaking barriers for the integration of renewable energy sources onto the nation’s electrical grid.

Contact: Mollie Rappe

PWater Power Materials

Bernadette Hernandez-Sanchez leads Sandia’s Marine and Hydrokinetic (MHK) Advanced Materials Program and the Department of Energy’s MHK Composite Materials Database. Applied research and development from the programs provide solutions to materials and coatings problems that could hinder a device’s construction, performance, maintenance or reliability. She develops renewable energy materials, marine composites and coatings.

Contact: Neal Singer

Environment

Climate Change

Mark Ivey, a specialist in atmospheric measurements and the Arctic climate, is the science liaison for Sandia’s climate research facilities in Alaska for the Department of Energy.

Contact: Mollie Rappe

Water

Vincent Tidwell is a hydrologist with expertise in water-resource modeling and management, resource planning, water-energy-land interdependence and climate impacts on humans and infrastructure. He served on former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on water and was a lead author for the Water, Energy and Land Use chapter in the 2014 National Climate Assessment and the Energy Chapter in the 2018 assessment.

Contact: Mollie Rappe

Materials Science

Wahid Hermina is a manager within Sandia’s Chief Research Office with expertise in materials aging and reliability, experimental and computational engineering sciences, material constitutive models, and microscale and nanoscale phenomena.

Contact: Troy Rummler

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems

Keith Ortiz is a manager with expertise  in Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) and leads research and development toward advanced MEMS devices.

Contact: Neal Singer

Military and Defense

Jason Guldan is a manager with expertise in analysis, modeling and electronic security engineering capabilities. He has a broad background in physical security for large federal sites.

Contact: Mollie Rappe

Nanotechnology

Biological-inspired Nanoscience

George Bachand is a bioengineer who uses expertise in nanoscale processes and knowledge of biology to design and develop biomimetic and bio-inspired nanomaterials and systems. He has used molecular engineering to design and enhance biological nanomachines, integrated biomolecular motors and pumps in nanosystems for autonomous sensing and used synthetic DNA to safely and securely store sensitive information.

Contact: Troy Rummler

Microsystems and Nanodevices

Rick McCormick leads departments involved in silicon and compound semiconductor electronics, photonics and radiation effects for such applications as harsh-environment radiation-hardened electronics and photonics, exascale computing and satellite sensing and communication.

Contact: Troy Rummler

Ronen Polsky is a Sandia materials scientist exploring nanomaterials, biosensors and other medical and health-related innovations. He led the design of a microneedle sensor, a device that continually samples important biomarkers in a subject’s interstitial fluid to help monitor and diagnose numerous diseases and disorders.

Contact: Neal Singer

Nanotechnology (Livermore, CA)

François Leonard specializes in nanoelectronics and nanophotonics, particularly carbon nanotubes, nanowires and metal-organic frameworks, with applications in next-generation electronics and photodetectors.

Contact: Michael Langley

Nuclear Nonproliferation

Mark W. Smith is a passive and active optical remote sensing expert especially interested in the application of remote sensing to detect and monitor the proliferation/non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. He also is interested in detecting and characterizing explosions and conducts research and development work for the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development.

Contact: Kristen Meub

Physics

Z Pulsed-Power Machine & High Energy Density Science

Daniel Sinars oversees research on inertial confinement fusion and other high energy density science work, especially for stockpile stewardship. High energy density and fusion physics encompass laboratory research on extreme states of matter at pressures one million times greater than atmospheric pressure.

Contact: Neal Singer

Thomas Mattsson oversees research on high energy density physics research, especially using Sandia’s Z Pulsed Power Facility, also known as Z machine, to mimic and study astrophysical phenomena from black holes to Saturn’s age. Mattson also oversees university collaborations in high energy density physics.

Contact: Neal Singer

Photonics

Igal Brener is a senior scientist specializing in optics, semiconductors, condensed matter physics, ultrafast lasers, metamaterials, nanophotonics and terahertz science and technology. He has conducted in-depth research in fiber optical communication, nonlinear lithium-niobate waveguide devices and semiconductor heterostructures. He is also a staff scientist at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, a Department of Energy user facility for nanoscience.

Contact: Troy Rummler

Patrick B. Chu manages a department focused on performing cutting-edge research in silicon photonics and nanophotonics for optical communication, sensing, radio frequency and quantum applications critical for national security.

Contact: Troy Rummler

Radiation

Steven Farmer oversees a Sandia department focused on monitoring radiation hazards and prescribing controls for the various radiological activities performed in support of Sandia’s mission. Farmer offers a significant depth of expertise in health physics, like radiological instrumentation, analytical services, dosimetry and radiological event response. He also is a member of the U.S. Nuclear Incident Response Team.

Contact: Luke Frank

Walen Mickey is an expert in radiation safety (health physics) with extensive knowledge of the radiation sources at Sandia National Labs. He holds a B.S. in physics and an M.S. in nuclear engineering. He is a certified health physicist and a past president of the Health Physics Society, Rio Grande Chapter.

Contact: Luke Frank

Gus Potter has more than two decades of experience and expertise in determining radiation doses and associated effects on humans. He performs systems analysis studies on the risk and consequences of acts of radiological terrorism, including adversary motivation and capability, availability and security of radiological sources, consequences of using radiological devices and ways to mitigate threats and consequences. He is a Fellow of the Health Physics Society and a director of the American Academy of Health Physics.

Contact: Kristen Meub

Robotics

Stephen Buerger excels in novel robotics, unmanned systems, and autonomous and advanced real-time control systems. He provides expertise in advanced mobility systems, small-scale electromechanical systems and biomedical technologies focused on physically interactive manipulation. He also is versed in energy-efficient and high-performance actuator technologies, as well as biomedical and human-interactive technologies.

Contact: Mollie Rappe

Semiconductor Materials

Jeff Tsao is internationally recognized as a pioneer and leader in solid state lighting. He works on integrated science, technology and economic modeling in semiconductor and energy technologies and the “science of team science."

Contact: Neal Singer

Technology Transfer

Small Business Partnerships

Paul Sedillo manages Sandia’s Small Business Program and leads the execution of Sandia’s small business subcontracting plan and supplier diversity efforts.

Contact: Troy Rummler

Tech Transfer and Economic Development

Mary Monson manages Sandia’s technology partnerships and business development programs. She has more than 30 years of experience in intellectual property management, licensing, and technology transfer. She oversees Sandia’s strategic partner projects that enable the labs to meet national security challenges. She also manages CRADA and economic development programs that contribute to bringing new technologies to the marketplace.

Contact: Troy Rummler

Jason Martinez is Sandia’s lead Cooperative Research & Development Agreement, or CRADA, specialist. Having negotiated and executed hundreds of CRADAS, he is recognized as an expert in CRADA development and facilitation. CRADAs facilitate critical collaborative research with a multitude of nonfederal entities on Sandia-developed technology and capabilities.

Contact: Troy Rummler

Transportation

Combustion Research Facility (Livermore, CA)

Paul Miles manages a Sandia department that seeks to increase understanding of internal combustion engine processes that affect efficiency and emissions.

Contact: Michael Langley

General Inquiries

For general media inquiries, contact Sandia’s News Media Help Line at 505-844-4902.