Hurd, coming from Sandia National Laboratories, will also manage Los Alamos' program for interacting with the Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy Sciences in Neutron Scattering and serve as the leader of the group that operates and manages the scientific program at the Lujan Center, LANSCE-12.
In these roles he will support and advance the use of LANSCE for materials studies and basic understanding of nuclear structures by the national and international community of scientists.
LANSCE Director Paul Lisowski made the announcement.
"Alan is the ideal person to fill this very important role at LANSCE," said Lisowski. "He has impeccable scientific credentials and is highly regarded by the basic research, Lujan Center and weapons science communities. He knows LANSCE and the Lujan Center well and understands the challenges they face. Alan will be a great addition to LANSCE."
LANSCE comprises a high-power 800-million-electron-volt linear accelerator for protons, a Proton Storage Ring, production targets at the Lujan Center and the Weapons Neutron Research Facility, and a variety of associated experimental areas and spectrometers. LANSCE produces intense beams of pulsed neutrons at both the Lujan Center and the Weapons Neutron Research Facility, which provide Los Alamos and the U.S. scientific community with the capability to perform experiments that support both defense and civilian research.
Hurd is well known to employees at LANSCE and the Lujan Center because he has served since 1996 as a member of the LANSCE Advisory Board and chaired the LANSCE Users Group Executive Committee from 1996 to 1997.
Hurd said, "I'm very excited to join the management team at LANSCE. The Lujan Center is a tremendous resource with much to offer the national and international external user communities, as well as scientists at Los Alamos. I'm going to do everything possible to help it reach the goal of operating safely with maximum availability."
Hurd served in a number of senior technical and management positions at Sandia National Laboratories since 1984. At Sandia, he managed the departments of Ceramics Processing Sciences, Theoretical and Computational Materials Modeling, New Materials Theory and Validation, and Catalytic and Porous Materials. He also continues to serve as an adjunct professor of physics at the University of New Mexico.
Lisowski noted that in addition to Hurd's solid management credentials, he is well regarded in the scientific community, as witnessed by his numerous awards and recognition. Hurd twice received the DOE Basic Energy Sciences Award for Sustained Outstanding Research, and in 1992 won the DOE Basic Energy Sciences Award for Significant DOE Implications. Hurd received the 1999 Woody Award from the Materials Research Society, which is awarded once per year for outstanding service to the society.
Hurd graduated with a bachelor's degree in engineering physics from the Colorado School of Mines and with a master's degree and doctorate in physics from the University of Colorado.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and the Washington Division of URS for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.