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Susan S. Hubbard

Deputy for Science and Technology

Dr. Susan Hubbard is the Deputy for Science and Technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). In this role, she guides one of the nation’s most extensive portfolios of research and development, spanning computing and computational sciences, materials science, environmental and biological research, energy science and technology, isotope research and development, fission and fusion energy, neutron sciences, and national security sciences. In concert with the Deputy for Laboratory Operations, she supports the Laboratory Director in the planning, integration, and execution of Laboratory-level initiatives.

Hubbard is ORNL’s chief research liaison with the University of Tennessee, other national laboratories, and institutional partners. She has over a decade of scientific leadership in a national laboratory setting, most recently serving as associate lab director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she oversaw the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area. Prior to joining Berkeley Lab, Hubbard was a geologist at the US Geological Survey and a geophysicist in industry. She has served widely on advisory and editorial boards and as a leader or advisor on many initiatives and large collaborative efforts. She is also an adjunct full professor at the University of California (UC), Berkeley.

Hubbard helped to pioneer a new field focused on using geophysical data and integration strategies to quantify how hydrological, geochemical, and biological processes interact and influence water availability, water quality, and carbon cycling in terrestrial systems. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Geophysical Union, and the Geological Society of America (GSA). She has received the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) Near Surface Global Lecture Award; the SEG Frank Frischknecht Leadership Award; the SEG Harold Mooney Award; the American Institute of Hydrology Robert G. Wetzel Award; and the GSA Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer Award. She has held many professional community leadership roles and is currently chair of the Hydrosphere and Atmosphere Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Hubbard earned her Ph.D. in civil and environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley, an M.S. in geophysics at Virginia Tech, and a B.S. in geology at UC Santa Barbara.

For additional information about Hubbard, visit her ORNL staff profile.