Conversation with SRNL’s Laboratory Director

Welcome to Science at Work, a new podcast from Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken, South Carolina. I’m your host, Mike Ettlemyer. Science at Work is a production of the Savannah River National Laboratory, SRNL, Office of Communications.

We’re trying to build understanding of what a national lab is and what it does so that the non-scientists among us understand how SRNL puts science to work to protect our environment, serve our national defense, secure our clean energy future, and reduce emerging nuclear threats.

And so, we like to speak with the scientists, engineers and other professionals who are at the heart of who we are, what we do and why it matters.

Today we’re speaking with Dr. Vahid Majidi, who is our laboratory director at SRNL. Vahid is a former member of the Senior Executive Service, with direct reporting responsibilities to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, U.S. Director of National Intelligence, and the director of the FBI. He has experience in the areas of chemistry, measurement science and technology, national and homeland security, science and technology policy, and nuclear nonproliferation. I could go on…and will for just a little bit.

He was appointed chief science advisor to the Department of Justice, where he coordinated science and technology policy among Department of Justice agencies and with state and local law enforcement. He also served as leader of the Chemistry Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory and was a tenured associate professor of chemistry at the University of Kentucky.

On a personal note, Vahid will be leaving us for new adventures in the coming months. We truly wish him well in whatever comes next. Welcome, sir, to the podcast.

Vahid: Well, thank you very much, Michael, for having me here today. I’m really looking forward to, discussing some of the key issues we have at SRNL and some of our success stories. So, I’m eager to hear your questions.

Mike: Excellent, excellent. Well, you have a great vantage point as laboratory director, our chief executive. You meet many people through your work at SRNL, some of whom understand what we do and some who don’t. How do you explain what we do to a non-scientist?

Vahid: You know, I have to explain this to my family all the time. And I like to break it down to three or four, condensed sentences of what we do. So, number one, because of our work, in nuclear deterrence, we focus on preserving United States national security.

So, we have a portfolio, research and development, and work we do in national security. We are sponsored by environmental management organization at DOE headquarters. So, one of our primary jobs is clean planet. How do you clean up the legacy waste? And the third is a combination of advanced research and development in engineering, science, leading edge deployment of technology to benefit the citizens of the United States.

Mike: Right. Okay, I like that. I like that. Becoming an independent national lab, three years ago was a significant milestone for the lab, SRNL. What does this mean in real terms? And why is it a good thing for taxpayers in the nation?

Vahid: Savannah River National Laboratory, along with other national laboratories in DOE complex, are designated as FFRDCs. That’s Federally Funded Research and Development Center. It’s an entity established by statute and legally FFRDCs are required to work on behalf of the United States citizens and make the best decisions on behalf of federal government. We have no conflict of interest, no interest in self-preservation, and our entirety of work is focused in benefiting U.S. citizens.

So, from that point of view, it’s an amazingly altruistic work that every one of us at SRNL works to better the United States and benefit the citizens.

Mike: So, it’s fair to say we’re a service organization. We serve the nation.

Vahid: Absolutely. We serve our country, and we serve all our citizens in multitude of different ways, locally and nationally and, in fact, globally.

Mike: Okay. What would you want people to know about the Department of Energy national labs and about SRNL specifically as part of that?

Vahid: Department of Energy’s national laboratory complex is an amazing set of institutions that, focus on absolutely the most cutting-edge science and technology in broad areas that impacts every citizen in one way or another.

You can actually go to Department of Energy websites and identify the number of Nobel Prize winners that came from national laboratory systems, the number of inventions that impacts everyone every day. The number of developments that benefits all of us, the economic impact that it has for every one of us. National laboratories genesis really came from the Manhattan Project.

And originally as the Manhattan Project was being put together, it involved places like University of Chicago, University of California, and that was the birthplace of, two of the earliest national laboratories, Argonne and Los Alamos, and ultimately expanded to places like Tennessee in terms of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Savannah River National Laboratory is one of the youngest national laboratories.

Savannah River Site was established in 1951, and the laboratory at that time was a service organization within DuPont operating the site. Twenty years ago, Department of Energy, looking at the amount of work we’ve done, the quality of work we’ve done, designated our laboratory a national laboratory.

And it was only three years ago that the department spun us off as an independent national laboratory. So, as you can see, within the family of national laboratories, there is a lot of amazing work done. There is a lot of expectations from the department and the work we do, and we own that responsibility today.

Mike: Yes, we talk a lot about our mission and vision and that we strive to be the premier applied science laboratory. What does this mean to you and what are we doing to reach that vision? Why is it good for America?

Vahid: Yeah. You know, if you look at the scientific discoveries, right, you have to work all the way from fundamental science, trying to find the nature of universe, things that help us add to the human knowledge, in, in a very collective way. But not every fundamental science discovery is immediately useful or can be put into applied work to benefit the citizens, of the United States and, moreover, everyone.

So, being an applied laboratory, the implications are the stage of science that we work is, more focused on scientific areas that are somewhat beyond the discovery stage and more into the maturation stage so that they could be deployed for utilization.

So, this is what we’ve done for the past seven decades. In fact, if you drive around Savannah River Site and, other DOE complexes, many of these large buildings doing complex processes. Those processes were designed, invented or perfected at Savannah River National Laboratory.

Mike: Right.

Vahid: Back then, obviously, we weren’t designated as a national laboratory. So it was at the laboratory that today we call Savannah River National Laboratory. But it’s one and the same.

Mike: Yeah. It’s amazing when you think about the body of work and discovery that we’ve enabled here. Over the years, over decades. And it’s pretty amazing.

You’re listening to Science at Work, a new podcast from Savannah River National Laboratory. We’re speaking with Dr. Vahid Majidi, laboratory director at SRNL.

You have said that SRNL was the only lab you were interested in, because it was the only one poised for growth. I’m paraphrasing a bit there. You may have said it a little differently. How was this true when you arrived? How has that changed? And how is the lab positioned now in your view?

Vahid: Well, it was actually true. It’s still true. And it’s going to continue to be true for a number of reasons. So, first let me tell you about Savannah River Site.

Savannah River Site is 310-square mile of facilities using [the] complex, and less than 10% of it is industrialized. And even in an industrial footprint, there is a tremendous amount of space for expansion and growth. So physically, Savannah River Site is one of the biggest sites in DOE with available space for expansion. If you look at, the DOE sites specifically on east of Mississippi, we’re clearly one of the largest facilities with a lot of room to expand.

The Savannah River National Laboratory is actually, in a bottom third of national laboratory complex in terms of size and in terms of programmatic dollars. And the amount of work that can be done and expanded beyond what we do. It has a very significant headroom for both growth in terms of geography and in terms of programs.

So, when I say Savannah River National Laboratory had the biggest potential for growth, that still remains true. You know, roughly when I started, about seven years ago here [we were] at about 950 employees at the laboratory. Today, we are roughly at about 1,450. And that’s just what I would consider the first step of a, step function.

And we can significantly increase our population based on programmatic needs. And our Department of Energy’s needs. So as the department requires more work to be done at DOE complex, we can certainly raise our hand and say, you know, the great place for it to be done is the Savannah River Site. And perhaps that Savannah River National Laboratory can lead that project for you.

Mike: That sounds great. So, all that being said, what are our growth opportunities as you see them for the next, let’s say five, 10 or even 20 years?

Vahid: Yeah, I like that. You know, I like the five, 10, 20-year time frame. So let me work backwards. So, I’ll go with the 20 year because being sponsored by EM, Environmental Management, we have to look at the legacy waste that’s within the complex and how long will it take to take care of the legacy waste? And we’re going to have legacy waste for quite a long time.

Twenty years is an interesting time frame, because that’s roughly about the same time that the legacy waste at Savannah River Site is supposed to be taken care of. So currently we’re heavily involved with all the contractors at Savannah River Site. And in 20 years, if, we’re successful in completing the legacy waste project at Savannah River site, then that automatically takes us to a different place. So, you no longer will be predominantly legacy waste service provider at the site because that no longer exists. So, by that time we have to have a lot of programmatic expansion working with EM across the entirety of the complex. The whole complex can’t be cleaned up in that time frame. Or work with the Department of Energy NNSA, National Nuclear Security Administration.

Mike: Right.

Other DOE offices. I would also go with Department of Defense and other U.S government agencies and trying to work with them, trying to develop the next generation of work that can be done on the site. So, within the 20 years, I think this laboratory will not be recognizable for people who are here today.

In fact, today, this laboratory is not recognizable by people who were here 20 or 30 years ago. And that is the sign of a vibrant, successful national laboratory. Five years from now, the couple of things that are going to happen significantly different. October this year, if you paid attention to the site, you noticed that the site in a past few decades was sponsored by EM and that sponsorship has changed to NNSA.

So now we are more focused as a site for nuclear security issues. And as we go forward over the next five years, what you’ll see is that we’ll have a new management and operation company running the site. We have to interface with them over the next five years to ensure we can deliver on nuclear deterrence and security of our country.

So, the mid-range, which is somewhere between 5 and 20 years, that gives us ample time to be ready for future. And the great thing we have at the laboratory today is that we have hired a number of highly qualified individuals into our workforce that can certainly take us there.

Mike: That’s great. Yes. I mean, it makes sense to me anyway, as a non-scientist, that we’re evolving, that we’ve changed and that that’s a result of very good things happening here. What are the challenges in leading an organization with such a multifaceted portfolio? How does the lab come together to focus on specific goals?

Vahid: It’s a great question. And, when you look at operational requirements that are diverse from technical areas, really there is no one element that brings everybody together. So, we can focus on a unified approach. What brings us all together, first and foremost, is the desire for service to our country. What makes the mission of national Laboratories very compelling is that, you know, at the end of the day, you’re serving the citizens and everything you do matters. So that is a compelling reason that drives our workforce.

So, when people work on environmental management, they work on legacy management, they work on new energy fronts. They work on national security, both in terms of nonproliferation or nuclear deterrence. Everyone has the same driving force doing the right thing for our country. Now, the methodology and approach is different. We have people who work in facility organizations. We have people who work in safety organizations. We have people who work in HR, finance, receiving, waste disposition. Everyone who works at the laboratory enables the mission in totality, and a driver for everyone is serving the country. Now, we bring all of those elements together and create a functional laboratory.

Mike: I keep nodding my head. Listeners can’t see this, of course. But I’ve been here, just under two years, and there’s a palpable sense to me, just walking around, that there is a sense of mission and purpose here. So, I think you’re absolutely correct.

Vahid: Yeah. And, you know, there is a mission and purpose in every job. We are uniquely privileged to have the mission and service that serves our country. So, if you go to any military installation, they have a unique mission and vision that serves our country. So, we all do it in different ways. We are lucky to have science behind us and use science and technology and engineering to drive that mission.

Mike: Yes, definitely. During your time as laboratory director, what SRNL achievements…it could be one, it could be more…stand out to you as, I would say, exemplifying our research expertise and mission as a national lab?

Vahid: Yeah, I really won’t say anything because we’ve done so many different things. I’m going to leave something off the table, and we’re going to ultimately either offend or make somebody upset.

Let me tell you more generically what we’ve done over the past seven years or over the past five years, over the past three years that I’m very proud of, being able to tell you is, our workforce.

We’ve been able to bring a significant number of new employees on board that if you, walk around the laboratory, you’ll find out that, you know, more than 50% of our employees have a tenure less than five years and more than, you know, more than 80% of our employees have less than 10 years.

And the way we’ve accomplished that is by bringing new programs to the laboratory that allows us to tap into different communities. So, we have a minority serving institution program that really helps us working with minority serving institutions around the country, as well as South Carolina, to bring in a group of employees that are highly qualified.

We have an intern program that allows us to bring in, college students before graduations, and actually acclimate them to the work we do. We have a post-doctoral program that allows us to bring people in with PhDs. And in an apprenticeship type of program, they can really matriculate into the work that we do today.

We have five universities, other partners. This is Clemson, University of South Carolina, South Carolina State University, University of Georgia and Georgia Tech that we work with every one of them to ensure we have a great pipeline for early career, employees coming on board. At the same time, we don’t really just focus on early career. We do hire mid-career and senior employees across the complex. When we do need that expertise, to be brought to the laboratory. I’m really proud that we’ve been successful through our organizational leadership, ensuring that we have highly qualified employees working in the lab.

Mike: What scientific development has surprised you most during your time as laboratory director?

Vahid: Yeah. So, let’s just say seven years ago, when I started, artificial intelligence and machine learning were predominantly focused, focused on machine learning. So, the laboratory was doing a lot of that work. We implemented a number of tools at the canyon that had machine learning elements that helped operate some specific activities, for cost cutting and for safety.

Today, with the advent of technology and having availability of, various types of processors, artificial intelligence has really come up in the rank of things. That really helps us do our work better in many different ways. As with any technology, we’ve got to be careful how we use it. So, this is one of the critical things for us. How do you use artificial intelligence in a way that best benefits the Department of Energy and then facilitates our work at Savannah River National Laboratory?

Mike: Right. And we’re working on policies to meet those, those challenges.

Vahid: Absolutely, yeah.

Mike: How would you like your tenure to be remembered here?

Vahid: Yeah. It’s simple, you know, I hope that I have impacted in a positive way [the] majority of people that work at the laboratory and in fact at the site. And I like people to think back, are we doing better today than we did before Vahid? And if the answer is yes, then I’ve done my job.

Mike: Yes, yes. And what would you say is next for you?

Vahid: So, I’m stepping down in January. I really haven’t contemplated any next step. I’m really focused on making sure the lab is in good hands. So, there is a search for a next laboratory director, and I want to make sure that that is successful.

We are, transitioning into a new enterprise system in January. And I want to make sure that is very successful, because that is the lifeblood and health of the future. And once we are done with those two things, I think at that point I can kind of sit back, kick off the shoes and think, what’s next for Vahid?

Mike: That sounds great. Well, thank for joining us today. It’s been a pleasure to have you. And thank you for your service to us.

Vahid: Michael, thank you very much for having me, too. For having me here today. It’s been an absolute pleasure working with everyone at Savannah River National Laboratory, Savannah River Site, our federal partners, both in EM and NNSA. And there is no better job on this planet that being a laboratory director. So I am, somewhat envious of the next lab director that comes to the laboratory, to our Savannah River National Laboratory. But at the same time, I’m here to ensure their success in the future.

Mike: And with that, thank you all for listening to our podcast. Science at Work is a production of the Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken, South Carolina.