Joe E Lake

Bio

Joe Lake is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for ORNL’s Computing and Computational Sciences Directorate.  In this position, he provides the operational leadership and direction needed to support the associate laboratory director in meeting the directorate’s objectives while maintaining excellence in research operations.  In his role as COO, he has been charged with ensuring directorate operations are in alignment with mission objectives and are compliant, efficient, and effective, as well as leading the development and implementation of laboratory initiatives and actions needed to support the laboratory to continuously improve operational performance and reliability.

Joe has led several key focus areas related to operational support for research programs and the line organizations. Previously he was the COO for the Quantum Science Center where he led subject areas including project management, procurement, intellectual property, communications, and ESH&Q. Additionally, he was the Strategic Programs Manager for NCCS where he supported the deployment and policy development of CITADEL - the capability for handling moderate data assets on the world's fastest computers for open science.

Joe has been with ORNL as a staff member since December 2004. He describes his career at ORNL as a “choose your own adventure novel”. He was hired on as a java programmer supporting a Defense Threat Reduction Agency facility vulnerability project, transitioned to a systems engineer deploying wireless data capture and transmission systems for harsh industrial environments at United States Steel, pivoted to program/project/operations management with ORNL’s initial engagement with Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services in 2011, and solidified this trajectory when he took on the role as Director for Operations for Health Data Sciences Institute in 2013 where he championed and lead the team for the initial deployment of the ORNL Knowledge Discovery Infrastructure. He was also the ORNL Program Manager for collaborations with the National Cancers Institute, including the long-standing joint DOE and NCI Joint Design of Advanced Computing Solutions for Cancer and a new National Childhood Cancer Registry program.

Joe holds a B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from UTK and a M.S. degree in Project Management from Boston University. 

Publications