Sandia Official Hired as New NIF Director

Sandia National Laboratories official Mark Hermann will take over as the new director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility Oct. 6, Principal Associate Director for NIF and Photon Science Jeff Wisoff said in a memo yesterday obtained by NS&D Monitor. Hermann has served as the director of Sandia’s Pulsed Power Sciences Center, senior manager of the lab’s High Energy Density Science and Radiation and Fusion Physics Groups, and manager of the ICF Target Design Department. Hermann began his career at Livermore as a postdoc in 1998 before becoming a staff physicist in the AX division. He is replacing Jeff Atherton, who had been serving as the NIF director as well as the principal deputy for NIF and Photon Science.