Sandia, LANL name new CINT director, co-director

Andreas Roelofs and Sean Hearne (1880) were appointed director and co-director of the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, a DOE Office of Basic Energy Science-funded user facility jointly operated with Los Alamos National Laboratory. They took their positions July 17.

Before being hired by Los Alamos, Roelofs worked at Argonne National Laboratory for six years. He served as the director of Argonne’s entrepreneurship program Chain Reaction Innovations and the Argonne Design Works center. He was also the deputy director of both the Nanoscience and Technology Division and the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne.

Sean was selected as the Sandia senior manager after Neal Shinn’s retirement in 2016. He started at Sandia as a graduate student intern 20 years ago and progressed from a postdoc, LTE, staff member, to management. Sean has been with CINT since the original proposal was written.

CINT provides users from around the nation access to world-leading equipment and scientists for researchers who are advancing the scientific understanding of how to fabricate, characterize, integrate, and model nanoscale materials. Nanoscale materials have the potential to revolutionize energy, human health, and national security. CINT users come from universities, national labs, and private industry – with a cost-recovery agreement.

Deputy Chief Research Officer Grant Heffelfinger (1100) says, “I’m very pleased that our new team is now in place at CINT. I’m looking forward to watching what the leadership of this capable and experienced team will be able to achieve as it enters its second decade as a DOE Basic Energy Science Nanoscale Science Research Center.”

Roelofs has experience in scientific research and leadership in private industry, startups, and the public sector. His early work focused on ferroelectric thin films and nanoparticles for ferroelectric random access memory applications. Roelofs spent six years working in the computer memory industry.

Sean was elected 2018 president of the Materials Research Society, an international organization that promotes interdisciplinary materials research, and is currently serving as vice president. His early work focused on stress mechanisms of thin film electrodeposition.