Brent K. Park, Ph.D.
Associate Laboratory Director
Global Security
Effective July 7, 2010, Dr. Brent Park became the Associate Laboratory Director of the Global Security Directorate (GSD) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He is responsible for national security programs at ORNL.
GSD's missions include developing a robust program portfolio supporting national priorities in global and homeland security for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and other agencies. GSD applies ORNL's distinctive science and technology capabilities to these mission areas, providing a unique research and development (R&D) platform to customers that complements and extends the overall Laboratory mission. The R&D program portfolio includes nuclear nonproliferation and threat reduction, arms and export control, homeland security, energy and counterterrorism technologies for DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In addition, GSD provides basic and applied research for the U.S. Department of Defense on a wide variety of national challenges including materials science, sensor technologies, simulation and modeling, and power and energy applications for both mobile power and infrastructure requirements.
Prior to joining ORNL, Dr. Park served as the Director of the U.S. DOE/NNSA Remote Sensing Laboratory (RSL), an integral part of the Nevada Test Site (NTS) contract managed by National Security Technologies, LLC. In this capacity, he was accountable for RSL's performance on the contract with DOE/NNSA, which predominantly focuses on supporting the national security mission through multidisciplinary R&D efforts. RSL addresses critical national security challenges with expertise and excellence in physical and environmental science; design and fabrication of electronic, mechanical, and structural systems; remote and robotic sensing; remote field experiments and operations. In this position, Dr. Park collaborated with national defense, homeland security, and intelligence community organizations in the applications of advanced technologies to meet their requirements.
Dr. Park began his career at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in 1989 when he performed his Ph.D. thesis experiment at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility (now the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center), using the spallation neutron source. After joining the LANL research staff, he held progressively higher level management positions supporting DOE's Basic Energy Science Program, Stockpile Stewardship Program, and nuclear nonproliferation missions. Dr. Park served as Deputy Division Leader of the LANL Nuclear Nonproliferation Division and then joined the NTS.
Dr. Park has more than 25 years of experience in physics research and in research management. He is a co-spokesman on 5 nuclear physics experiments; has more than 50 refereed publications along with more than 80 contributed papers, and has given numerous invited talks. He has extensive experience in the design of experiments and apparatus for accelerator-based nuclear physics techniques, and in the detection of both charged particles and neutrons at low and medium energies. He is one of the pioneers in developing and introducing portable, real-time digital radiography detector systems for nuclear emergency response applications. Dr. Park has established strong working relationships with research universities to promote and advance a science-based approach driven by technological innovation.
Dr. Park holds a Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics from Ohio University.