New director headed to Aiken national energy lab

The Savannah River National Laboratory is getting a new laboratory director.

Johney Green Jr., who currently serves as the associate laboratory director for mechanical and thermal engineering sciences at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, will soon assume his new post in Aiken, according to a news release.

SRNL is a multi-program national laboratory with an annual operating budget of about $400 million, according to the release. It is a research and development institution for the Offices of Environmental Management and Legacy Management at the Department of Energy and the Weapons and Nonproliferation programs for the National Nuclear Security Administration.

“We are thrilled to have Johney become the new leader of SRNL,” Juan Alvarez, said in the release. Alvarez is Battelle’s executive vice president for national laboratory management and operations and chair of the board of directors at Battelle Savannah River Alliance LLC. “We are confident that he is the right person to lead this exceptional national asset with a legacy of delivering impactful solutions for environmental, energy and security challenges.”

At NREL Green currently oversees NREL’s transportation, buildings, wind, water, geothermal, advanced manufacturing, concentrating solar power, and Arctic research programs, which encompass a portfolio of more than $300 million and a workforce of about 750. Directorate staff conduct research and development to enable technology innovations in the areas of energy efficiency, sustainable transportation and renewable power.

“I am honored and humbled by the opportunity to join the SRNL community and work alongside our dedicated staff and regional university partners” Green said in the release. “Together, we will drive innovation, enhance the laboratory’s capabilities and expand its contributions to national security, environmental sustainability and energy resilience for the benefit of the nation.”

Green transformed NREL’s wind site into the Flatirons Campus and transitioned the campus from a single-program wind research site to a multiprogram research campus that is the foundational experimental platform for the DOE’s Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems initiative, the release stated.

Prior to his time at NREL, Green held several leadership roles at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he served as director of the Energy and Transportation Science Division and group leader for fuels, engines and emissions research. Green managed a broad science and technology portfolio and user facilities that made significant science and engineering advances in building technologies; sustainable industrial and manufacturing processes; fuels, engines, emissions and transportation analysis; and vehicle systems integration, according to the release. During his tenure as a division director, ORNL developed the Additive Manufacturing Integrated Energy demonstration project, a model of innovative vehicle-to-grid integration technologies and next-generation manufacturing processes.

Early in his career, Green conducted combustion research to stabilize gasoline engine operation under extreme conditions. In the course of that research, he joined a team working with Ford Motor Co., seeking ways to simultaneously extend exhaust gas recirculation limits in diesel engines and reduce nitrogen oxide and particulate matter emissions, the release stated. He continued this collaboration as a visiting scientist at Ford’s Scientific Research Laboratory, conducting modeling and experimental research for advanced diesel engines designed for light-duty vehicles. On assignment to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office, Green also served as technical coordinator for the 21st Century Truck Partnership. He also contributed to a dozen of ORNL’s 150-plus top scientific discoveries.

Green is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an SAE International fellow. He serves on the Defense Science Board and several advisory boards including those at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Memphis. Green is also the former chairman of the board for the National GEM Consortium and has been an invited participant in several National Academy of Engineering programs. Green has received several awards during his career and holds two U.S. patents in combustion science. Additionally, he has an h-index of 34 with more than 4,500 citations, is the lead or co-author of several technical publications, and has given many invited, keynote and plenary presentations.

Green has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Memphis and a master’s and doctorate in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Battelle Savannah River Alliance, a not-for-profit limited liability company, manages and operates SRNL for the DOE. BSRA board leadership includes Battelle Memorial Institute, Clemson University, University of South Carolina, South Carolina State University, University of Georgia, and Georgia Institute of Technology. Battelle Memorial Institute and the five universities are joined in partnership with preferred subcontractors TechSource and Longenecker & Associates with the singular purpose of maintaining SRNL as a best-in-class national laboratory, the release stated.