Anantha Krishnan selected associate director for Engineering at LLNL
09/12/2014
Newsline
Anantha Krishnan has been named as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's new associate director (AD) for Engineering, effective immediately, Lab Director Bill Goldstein announced Friday.
Krishnan's selection follows a nationwide search process that the Lab launched last year after current Associate Director Monya Lane announced her intent to retire.
As the AD for Engineering, Krishnan will be responsible for leading an organization of approximately 1,600 employees who provide engineering expertise, capabilities and research that is vital to the success of the Laboratory's programs and to sustaining the long term vitality of our Laboratory's scientific foundations.
"Anantha is exceptionally well-qualified for this role and I am confident that he will be an outstanding advocate for the engineering discipline, sustain excellence in our engineering staff, ensure excellence in managing our critical facilities and lead the development of the next generation of our mission-enabling technologies," Goldstein said.
"I am honored to be taking on the role of associate director for Engineering," Krishnan said. "The Engineering Directorate has a long history of enabling the Lab to deliver on its ongoing missions while generating innovative ideas and concepts for future mission impact."
Krishnan has held multiple high-impact scientific and management positions since arriving at the Laboratory in 2005, and has quickly become a highly respected and accomplished leader. He has served as the deputy associate director in the Engineering Directorate and as the program director for Bio-Security, as well as the acting program director for Counterterrorism. He also served as the director of R&D in the Center for Micro- and Nano- Technology, and most recently, as the director for the Office of Mission Innovation. In these and other roles, Krishnan has seeded new Laboratory R&D initiatives in additive manufacturing, biomedical engineering and advanced sensor devices and systems.
Working with colleagues across the Laboratory, Krishnan was a key contributor to the diversification and revitalization of the biosecurity program portfolio. Prior to coming to the Laboratory, Krishnan was a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) from 1999 to 2005, where he managed several programs in nano-bio-technology and high performance microelectronic circuit design. In recognition of his efforts at DARPA, he was awarded the Medal for Exceptional Public Service by the Secretary of Defense in 2005.
He holds a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
14 comments:
Congratulations Dr. Anantha Krishnan!
Good to see after another extensive nationwide search, we find the best candidate was... inside the fence already!
Amazing! And they say hillbillies are inbred.
2:15. You nailed it!
Anantha has been at LLNL less than ten years, after extensive experience elsewhere. He is hardly 'inbred'.
10 years at a small company, 6 years at DARPA, and 9 years at LLNL.
That was the best in the nation that LLNL could find to run a core discipline.
2:15 is smack on -- inbreeding running rampant.
Next thing you know, LLNL engineers will have no teeth and goggly eyes from genetic abnormalities.
At least he is a real rocket scientist. Or was, before we sucked his soul out...
September 19, 2014 at 6:59 PM
Great comment - do you have anything intelligent to say?
That was the best in the nation that LLNL could find to run a core discipline.
Anantha is a solid guy and you'd know it if you had a conversation with him before quoting some superficial factoids. He could prove to be an excellent AD.
The entire 'national search' thing is so much blather. A 'high flyer' from outside is going to want serious discretionary funds up front. That juice dried up with transition. Not likely the Lab had to willfully overlook dozens of National Academy members that were submitting applications.
11:01 PM correctly notes that the lab cannot attract NAE-caliber applicants to run the entire engineering discipline at one of the "scientific crown jewels" of the USG, despite a salary that probably approaches or exceeds $500K/year.
Dumping Parney, the only outsider Director who came in and among other things fired some people who really needed firing, was a signal that the inmates have the warden's keys.
Whoever is the last person to leave, be sure to turn the lights out.
There are a half a dozen leaders in LLNL engineering today who can succeed Monya well. The best in my opinion, is in the process of retiring, and Anantha is among the remaining peers.
The remaining form a powerful and talented core leadership team, within both the directorate and the programs.
Judging LLNL Engineering from the source of its leadership is insightful but limited.
Compare LLNL engineering under internal LLNL hires Bill Brobeck Sr., Wally Decker, Hank McDonald, Den Fisher, Roger Werne, Glen Mara, Steve Patterson and Monya with previous external AD hires Spiros Dimolistas and Bill Simecka.
More consequential to engineering than its AD is its hiring (of excellent staff), the opportunities and challenges of job content, and its environment.
When hiring and job content are excellent, engineering prospers for a decade, when lax, it flounders.
The environment can impact engineering more than any group of leaders. The disaster of the the privatization of the lab and it undermining of leadership initiative and also so many best practices and beneficial cultural elements far exceeded the ability of the leadership in place to compensate.
Indeed, priviatization was a torpedo amidships that became a continuing disaster drill, to what was a smooth, effective, talented well-run ship. 1700 "work lives" were "lost", 6000 others were disrupted and no money was saved to the taxpayer.
The lesson for Congress? One Tyler Przbylek,or D'Agostino or Bodman placed in the wrong place and given the wrong amount of independance, can wreck the work of 1500 excellent hard-working engineers over 50 years...
Nice call guys.
" LLNL engineers will have no teeth and goggly eyes from genetic abnormalities..."
Your knowledge of the discipline of engineering and its implementation at LLL in your comment demonstrates the insight of a warm turd...
The previous poster, however, has been through the wars.
Engineering thrives when it is focused on making the Lab's core mission succeed and with budgets that are flush.
Without a core mission and "big-science" level budgets, Engineering struggles.
With the previous poster talking about the strengths of "LLL," a name which has been out of use for more than 25 years, you get an idea of what the impact of the cessation of testing in 1992 has had.
Will Anantha Krishnan reorganize the engineering divisions back to something resembling Steve Patterson's time?
engineering is seen as the slave labor for the rest of the lab. when done with the matrixed employees, they are sent back to engineering for re-education
"...engineering is seen as the slave labor for the rest of the lab. when done with the matrixed employees, they are sent back to engineering for re-education..."
LLNS Engineering FTEs are temp labor and in many cases a buffer to Akima supplemental labor. A compelling reason to stay clear of programs with high supplimental labor populations, unless you want to gamble with the EIT/EBA countdown to unemployment while being assigned to the most undesirable places around the lab to supply free labor. Some programs are just waiting for EIT/EBA orphans to get off the truck.
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