Kate Evans

Associate Laboratory Director
Biological and Environmental Systems Science

Katherine “Kate” Evans is the associate laboratory director for the Biological and Environmental Systems Science Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), where she leads research and strategy to advance national priorities in energy security, biotechnology innovation, and infrastructure resilience. She previously served as director of ORNL’s Office of Institutional Strategic Planning, guiding laboratory-wide science and technology strategy and leading the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program. She played a central role in initiatives such as “Accelerating Southeast Resilience at ORNL” and the Quantum Roadmap.

Evans previously served as director of ORNL’s Computational Sciences and Engineering Division, leading scalable computing efforts across multiple scientific domains. An active researcher in Earth system modeling, she specializes in numerical algorithms and large-scale atmospheric analysis. She holds a PhD and master’s degree in Earth and atmospheric sciences from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in physics from Haverford College. Evans serves on the faculty of the University of Tennessee’s Bredesen Center and on the board of the American Red Cross of East Tennessee. She is a member of the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). In 2024, SIAM awarded her the Mathematics of Planet Earth Prize for contributions to multidisciplinary science and leadership.