NEWPORT NEWS — Jefferson Lab will soon have a new leader.
Kimberly C. Sawyer has been appointed to serve as director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, the fifth head in the lab’s 40-year history, JLab said in a news release this week.
Sawyer, 67, will succeed Stuart Henderson, 60, who is stepping down after seven years, the release said.
She will assume her role Aug. 2.
Jefferson Lab — on Jefferson Avenue in Newport News’ Oyster Point section — employs more than 900 people, including many nuclear physicists, engineers and computer programmers.
Among their tasks: probing the nucleus of the atom.
The lab’s foremost tool is a particle accelerator that sends continuous beams of electrons down an oval-shaped tunnel nearly a mile long and runs 25 feet below the ground.
Sawyer takes the helm as the facility is set to expand, taking on a more significant role that will deliver “even greater impact to the scientific community, the Hampton Roads region and the nation,” the release said.
In October, for example, the Department of Energy announced that Jefferson Lab would be the home to a $300 million to $500 million “high performance data facility hub” to store and analyze research data.
Jefferson Lab and Brookhaven National Laboratory, in Long Island, New York, competed for more than five years to become the site of a new $1 billion national electron-ion collider.
While Jefferson Lab lost out to Brookhaven in 2020 for the new collider’s location, the Newport News lab is still deemed a major partner in the Long Island-based project.
Moreover, Jefferson Lab’s accelerator got a $338 million upgrade in 2018 that tripled its operating energy.
The release calls Sawyer “a successful change agent” who champions innovation while also spearheading efficiencies and a “strong culture of safety” in organizations she’s led.
“Kim delivers results, and we are confident her leadership and technical acumen will guide the lab as it begins its evolution to a multi-program laboratory,” said Sean J. Hearne, president and CEO of the Southeastern Universities Research Association, which oversees Jefferson Lab.
Jefferson Lab is funded by the federal government and managed by Jefferson Science Associates LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Southeastern Universities Research Association.
Sawyer has served as deputy laboratory director and chief operating officer for two other Department of Energy laboratories — Argonne National Laboratory outside of Chicago, and Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, according to the release. She also worked for years at defense giant Lockheed Martin.
Sawyer owns a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Robert Morris University, outside her hometown of Pittsburgh, and a master’s in mathematics and computing from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.
Peter Dujardin, 757-897-2062, pdujardin@dailypress.com
