The U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Lab on the Iowa State campus has a new director
The U.S. Department of Energy Ames National Laboratory will welcome a new director this summer to lead the lab in its work developing new materials and finding solutions for problems impacting the U.S. and the world.
Iowa State University said in a news release that Karl Mueller has been chosen to lead the Ames National Laboratory after current director Adam Schwartz announced his intent to step down. Mueller will start at the university on June 1.
The U.S. Department of Energy's lab on Iowa State University's campus is government-owned but university-operated. Iowa State's provost office led the search to find a replacement for Schwartz, according to a news release.
Schwartz started serving as director in 2014. He will move to part-time work supporting “business development for critical materials research at the lab and with its partners,” according to the release.
“For more than 75 years, Iowa State University has operated the Ames National Laboratory, producing scientific breakthroughs that have shaped history and addressed society’s most pressing challenges,” ISU President Wendy Wintersteen said in the release. “I am confident Dr. Mueller is the right person to advance this legacy of excellence.”
Mueller worked at National Lab in Washington, will serve as ISU professor
Mueller will leave his director position at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, according to the release. There he headed the Physical and Computational Sciences Directorate program development office. Other positions he’s held include chief science and technology officer for the lab directorate and chemistry professor at Pennsylvania State University.
Mueller will also work in the university’s chemistry department as a tenured professor.
“I am honored to join Ames National Laboratory, an institution renowned for its pioneering work in rare earth elements, quantum materials, and sustainable energy technologies,” Mueller said in the release. “The laboratory’s excellence in materials discovery and characterization, combined with its deep integration with Iowa State University, creates unique opportunities to address our nation’s critical science and technology challenges. I look forward to building on Ames’ distinguished legacy of scientific innovation to advance both fundamental research and strategic technologies.”
A nearly 80-year history of Ames Lab
Ames National Laboratory was formally established in 1947 as an outgrowth of critical work in Ames on the Manhattan Project that developed the first atomic weapons in World War II.Nearly 80 years later, the work of the lab's more than 470 employees is focused on creating new materials and technologies to enhance the U.S. economy, national security and global environmental protection, including to secure supply chains of critical materials for wind turbines and electric vehicles, turn electronic and plastic waste back into usable material, and develop next-generation computing and refrigeration technologies.
There are 17 DOE labs across the country, and many of the Ames scientists also hold faculty positions at Iowa State.
The Ames Lab has an annual budget of $60 million. It's located at 2408 Pammel Drive.
Several prominent scientists and academics have also spent time working at the lab, including former Oklahoma State University president James Halligan, Nobel Prize winner Dan Shechtman and former Honeywell CEO James Renier.
In 2013, the lab established its Critical Materials Institute to work on solving rare earth metal shortages in the U.S.
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