February 23, 2008 

Dear Colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that I announce the appointment of Dr. Anna Palmisano as the Associate Director of the Office of Science for the Office of Biological and Environmental Research in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).  The appointment is effective March 2, 2008.

Dr. Palmisano joins the Office of Science from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service where she served as the Deputy Administrator for Competitive Programs, managing more than $200M in science funding. From 1998 to 2004, she was a Program Manager in the Office of Biological and Environmental Research, where she developed and managed a wide range of basic research programs including bioremediation, carbon cycling and sequestration, and genomics. Prior to joining DOE, she was a Program Manager and acting Division Director for Biomolecular and Biosystems Sciences and Technology in the Office of Naval Research.

Dr. Palmisano received a B.S. degree in Microbiology with high honors from the University of Maryland and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Biology from the University of Southern California. She was an Allan Hancock Fellow at the University of Southern California and a National Research Council Fellow in planetary biology at NASA-Ames Research Center. She also worked as a staff microbiologist in the Environmental Safety Division of the Procter & Gamble Co. Her research interests have included sea ice microbial communities, stream ecology, microbial mats, bioremediation of organic pollutants, and landfill microbiology. She has led five research expeditions to Antarctica and published numerous papers in the field of microbial ecology.

With an annual budget of more than $500 million, the Office of Biological and Environmental Research is the nation’s leading program devoted to the study of biology and systems biology with applications to bio-energy production and use and to environmental remediation. The Office is also one of the nation’s leading contributors to the study of global climate change.  As head of the Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Dr. Palmisano will serve as one of six Associate Directors of the Office of Science.  She will be responsible for strategic program planning, budget formulation and execution, program integration with other Office of Science activities and with the DOE technology offices, and interagency integration. The position is within the ranks of the U.S. government’s Senior Executive Service (SES).

Dr. Palmisano will be located in Room G-167 of DOE’s Germantown facility.  She can be reached at 301-903-3251 or by e-mail at anna.palmisano@science.doe.gov after March 3, 2008.  Please join me in welcoming Dr. Palmisano to the Office of Science.