Saurabh Kabra

Dr. Saurabh Kabra is a senior neutron scattering scientist and a leader in the field of advanced materials characterization. He currently serves as the Science and Technology Manager for Instrument Systems at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), where he directs a team of scientists in the development of state-of-the-art neutron instruments for the Second Target Station, a major $2 billion project at ORNL.

Dr. Kabra’s career is marked by his expertise in using diffraction methods, such as neutron and synchrotron x-ray diffraction, to investigate the behavior of advanced metallic alloys. Before his return to ORNL in 2023, Dr. Kabra served as the Group Leader for Engineering and Imaging at the ISIS facility in the UK. There, he delivered the neutron Engineering/Imaging program and managed instruments like ENGIN-X. He also held an appointment as a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Bristol. His career also includes postdoctoral fellowships at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and Los Alamos National Laboratory, and he completed his PhD in Materials Science at the University of Tennessee.

As a member of the team, Dr. Kabra was awarded the 2025 Materials Chemistry Horizon Prize by the Royal Society of Chemistry for its groundbreaking work in applying AI to materials discovery. He is also active in the broader scientific community, having served on influential science council and review panels for institutions like the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL).