University-National Lab Collaborations in Nuclear Engineering: From Research to Workforce

Dr. Noël Bakhtian is Executive Director of the Berkeley Lab Energy Storage Center at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. She was previously a member of the Senior Leadership Team at DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory as director of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES), and provided congressional testimony on energy workforce challenges and opportunities in 2018. Formerly, Dr. Bakhtian served as a senior policy adviser for environment and energy in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and served as the inaugural lead for the energy-water nexus at DOE’s Office of International Affairs. Dr. Bakhtian earned her engineering doctorate at Stanford University’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics; holds master’s degrees from Stanford University and the University of Cambridge, where she was a Churchill Scholar; and completed her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and physics at Duke University. Dr. Bakhtian serves as a member of the National Academies Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy; and as a board member for the Institute for the Quantitative Study of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity. She is a Professor of the Practice at Boise State University.