NATIVE OF: Boston, Mass.
EDUCATION: University of Toronto (BA), Florida State University (Ph.D.)
PRIOR EXPERIENCE: Various leadership positions for 20 years with GE as a physicist in the company’s electromagnetic and superconductivity laboratory; director of the Magnet Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory leading a team of scientists, engineers and technicians developing the future of superconducting magnet technology.
QUESTION: You are an FSU alum, worked at GE on MRI development and most recently were head of the Superconducting Magnet Division at the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. How did that career journey lead you back to Tallahassee and the MagLab?
ANSWER: When the announcement came out about the directorship search, my very good friend, Dr. Lance Cooley with the FSU-FAMU College of Engineering, who was on the search committee, said, “Hey, if you’re interested, please feel free to apply.” So, I sent in my resume like everybody else did who was interested in the job. And certainly, what interested me most about this job is not just liking the cultural and academic environment here in Tallahassee, but the really big thing that attracted me is the breadth of high magnetic field research that goes on here is phenomenal. This is one of the leading research institutes in the world in high magnetic fields.
Q: What did you learn scientifically and administratively during your tenure at GE?
A: At GE I really got my understanding about how you do industrial research, how you take what somebody has already discovered and turn that into a product. I also learned about project management that needed to happen on a fast time scale. Also, while I was at GE I worked on energy systems and airborne generators for powering advanced aircraft.
Q: And at the Department of Energy’s laboratory at Brookhaven?
A: At Brookhaven I learned about how to manage gigantic projects. The Department of Energy manages some of the largest projects in the world. I found it took project management to a whole new scale involving hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars. The discipline that’s been developed at DOE in managing these kinds of very large projects successfully and getting them done on time, that has always been really fascinating to me. It gives me a lot more confidence in how some of the big government agencies are managing our tax dollars.
Q: As director you manage some 500 scientists and employees. What are your goals in that important leadership role?
A: It’s a very exciting time for high magnetic research, and I’m working with a lot of incredibly smart people, and as director my goal is I just want to help them be successful.