Chad Steed

Bio

Dr. Chad Steed is a Distinguished Research Staff member who leads the Data Science and Visualization Group in the Cyber Resilience and Intelligence Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Dr. Steed returned to ORNL in 2022 after a industry sabbatical that included service as Vice President, Enterprise Data Analytics at Regions Financial Corp. (2021) and the Senior Director of Data Analytics at Lirio, LLC (2022). In his first stint at ORNL, which spanned over a decade, he rose from Associate to Senior Research Staff, served as a Team Leader for two years, and he was the founding Director of the ORNL Visual Informatics for Science and Technology Advances (VISTA) Laboratory. Prior to first joining ORNL, he enjoyed earlier positions with the Naval Research Laboratory as a scientist (over 9 years) and Lockheed Martin as a software engineer (2 years). Dr. Steed earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Mississippi State University where his studied data visualization and computer graphics. He also received a B.S. in Software Engineering with a Fine Art minor and a M.S. in Hydrographic Science from the University of Southern Mississippi.

Dr. Steed's research focuses on developing methods that orchestra visual analytics, machine learning, and scalable data management to enable human-directed, machine-enabled, and data-driven analysis. He has applied these methods to a myriad of domains, namely intelligence, materials science, climate, manufacturing, healthcare, finance, high-performance computing, cyber security, quantum computing, nuclear nonproliferation, and explainable artificial intelligence.

Dr. Steed was named an MSU Bagley College of Engineering Distinguished Fellow in 2018 and he received the 2014 UT-Battelle Early Career Researcher Award, two ORNL Technology Commercialization Awards (2013 and 2014), and an R&D 100 Award in 2013. Dr. Steed has over 90 publications, 3 patents, and he has served as the lead PI on numerous grants from a variety of government agencies. He maintains several open source software projects and he has licensed tools to external companies. He is a senior member of the IEEE and ACM societies.

Please see Dr. Steed's curriculum vitae and visit http://csteed.com for more information.

Awards

• ORNL Innovation Award, 2024
• Regions Financial Corp. Data & Analytics Associate of the Month (July), 2021
• MSU Bagley College of Engineering Distinguished Fellow, 2018
• Petal High School Academic Hall of Fame, 2017
• ORNL Director’s Best Research & Development Poster Award, 2016
• R&D 100 Award Finalist (CoNNECT energy analytics), 2015
• ORNL Early Career Researcher Award, 2014
• ORNL Technology Commercialization Award, 2014
• ORNL Significant Event Award (ACME project), 2014
• Elsevier Computers & Geosciences Journal 2013 Best Paper Award, 2014
• ORNL Technology Commercialization Award, 2013
• R&D 100 Award (DTHSTR recommender), 2013
• ORNL Significant Event Award (DTHSTR development and licensing), 2013
• Upsilon Pi Epsilon Honor Society Induction, 2008
• NRL Select Graduate, 2005-2007
• NRL Technology Transfer Award (GDBV Project), 2005
• Lockheed Martin Lightning Award (DBDBV Project), 1999
• “Best of Show” Painting Award in the USM Fine Art Dept. Student Art Show, 1999

Education

Ph.D. in Computer Science, Mississippi State University

Dissertation: “Development of a Geovisual Analytics Environment using Parallel Coordinates with Applications to Tropical Cyclone Analysis”

Advisor: J. Edward Swan II

Committee: T.J. Jankun-Kelly, P. J. Fitzpatrick, R. Moorhead, E. Allen

M.S. in Hydrographic Science, University of Southern Mississippi 

Thesis Project: “A Hydrographic Survey of the Pearl River from Stennis Space Center to the I-10 Bridge” 

IHO Category “A” Certified Hydrographer

Advisor: David Dodd

B.S. in Software Engineering, University of Southern Mississippi

Minor: Fine Art, Graduated with Honors

Senior Project Title: “A Cartographic Viewer for the World Vector Shoreline Plus Database”

Advisor: Desmond Fletcher

Professional Affiliations

• Senior Member, IEEE
• Senior Member, ACM

Publications