Slaybaugh to Lead Berkeley Lab’s Cyclotron Road
The Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has named Rachel Slaybaugh, associate professor of nuclear engineering at UC Berkeley, to lead Berkeley Lab’s Cyclotron Road Division. The announcement follows an international search.
Until recently, Slaybaugh served as a program director at DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), whose mission is to advance high-potential and high-impact energy technologies. She led programs supporting research in advanced nuclear fission reactors, agriculture technologies, and sensing and data analytics for four years, from 2017 through 2020.
“The Cyclotron Road Division Director needs to have a deep scientific understanding as well as a great discernment of what are game-changing technology ideas, how to support them, and what it requires to take a very early-stage idea to market,” said Ravi Prasher, Berkeley Lab’s director for the Energy Technologies Area. “Rachel’s strong research background at UC Berkeley and her program leadership experience at ARPA-E make her exceedingly qualified to lead Cyclotron Road.”
Since 2015, Cyclotron Road, a division of Berkeley Lab’s Energy Technologies Area, has supported leading entrepreneurial scientists as they develop globally impactful and commercially viable technology products through its fellowship program, which is operated in partnership with Activate, a nonprofit organization. Each year, through the fellowship program, it recruits a cohort of innovators who spend two years developing technologies that transform energy- and resource-intensive industries. These innovators “embed” at Berkeley Lab with access to state-of-the-art facilities and world-renowned scientists both at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, and they also participate in a program, co-managed with Activate, of intensive mentorship, professional development, and networking.