Advanced Science and Technology Associate Labs Director, Chief Research Officer
Douglas Kothe is the Associate Laboratories Director (ALD) for Advanced Science and Technology and Chief Research Officer at Sandia National Laboratories.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and a Master of Science and a Doctorate in Nuclear Engineering from Purdue University. Prior to joining Sandia in June 2023, Dr. Kothe spent more than 38 years in multidisciplinary research and development organizations and in computer and computational sciences programs focused on energy, manufacturing, and national security.
Dr. Kothe held several technical program management positions over a 20-year span at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He began his career as a graduate student at LANL in 1985. After 2 years at LANL, he then ventured to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In 1988, he moved back to LANL where he spent the next 18 years. He then joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) where he was ALD for Computing and Computational Sciences. He also served as director of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Exascale Computing Project.
Dr. Kothe held several roles at ORNL prior to joining Sandia. He was the Director of Science at the National Center for Computational Sciences (2006-2010) and the Director of DOE’s first Energy Innovation Hub, the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors from 2010-2015. In addition, he drove the creation, application, and deployment of the innovative Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications, a 2016 R&D 100 Award winner that offered a technology step change for the U.S. nuclear energy industry.
Dr. Kothe has co-authored over 90 publications, including journal articles, technical and program reports, and presentations given at a variety of conferences.