Interim Associate Laboratory Director
for Energy and Environmental Sciences
Gary K. Jacobs was appointed interim Associate Laboratory Director (ALD) for Energy and Environmental Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) on November 30, 2015. He is responsible for energy, biological, and environmental research programs at ORNL supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Offices of Science, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, and Fossil Energy. The Energy and Environmental Sciences Directorate (EESD) also carries out Strategic Partnership Projects for the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Institutes of Health.
EESD's mission is to advance sustainable and secure energy and environmental systems by developing and integrating innovative energy and environmental technologies with fundamental research. This mission is executed by four research divisions (Biosciences, Environmental Sciences, Energy and Transportation Science, and Electrical and Electronics Systems Research); several research centers, including the DOE BioEnergy Science Center, the University of Tennessee-ORNL Joint Institute for Biological Sciences, the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility, and the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility; and two institutes shared with the ORNL Computing and Computational Sciences Directorate (the Climate Change Science Institute and the Urban Dynamics Institute).
Gary has been involved in research, problem solving, and leadership in the biological, energy, and environmental sciences for more than 30 years. He has performed fundamental and applied research in a broad range of areas using laboratory, field, and computational methods. His formal training and experience was in high-temperature petrology and geochemistry, and early in his career he applied the principles of thermodynamics and kinetics to subsurface and in situ remediation science and technology. In 1999, Gary became the first ORNL director of the Center for Carbon Sequestration in Terrestrial Ecosystems. In recent years, he has enjoyed the challenge of assimilating new knowledge to help ORNL establish programs in sustainable bioenergy and climate change research.
Gary served as director of ORNL's Environmental Sciences Division (ESD) from January 1, 2004, until January 1, 2013, when he retired. He also served as interim ALD for Biological and Environmental Sciences from November 1, 2008, until June 30, 2009. In 2009, Gary helped create the ORNL Climate Change Science Institute. This first-of-its-kind organization at ORNL brought together ~100 staff in advanced data systems, high-performance computing, terrestrial systems ecology, and climate change impacts and adaptation science with a focus on integration across these four research themes. Earlier in his career, Gary was deputy director of ESD (1998-2004) and section head for Earth Sciences (1995-1998). Gary holds a B.A. in geology from the University of Vermont and a Ph.D. in geochemistry from Pennsylvania State University.