Natalie Roe picture.

Natalie Roe champions the highly-accomplished research divisions in accelerator technology, engineering, nuclear science, particle physics and cosmology. She received her Ph.D. in Physics in 1989 from Stanford University and joined the Lab as a postdoctoral fellow, holding many positions on the way to becoming ALD in July 2020. Roe has developed advanced instrumentation for her research in particle physics and cosmology experiments, and oversaw an expansion of research into dark matter, dark energy and quantum information science.

Cameron Geddes was appointed ATAP Division Director in March 2021. An award-winning scientist known internationally for his work on laser-plasma accelerators, Geddes has served as the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA) Center’s Deputy for Experiments. He continues to serve as leader of the Laser-Plasma Accelerator Applications Group within the BELLA Center, as well as the next-generation kBELLA initiative. Geddes received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Daniela Leitner (2022). Photo credit: Thor Swift, Berkeley Lab

Daniela Leitner was appointed Engineering Division Director and the Laboratory’s Chief Engineer in October 2024. An accelerator physicist internationally known for the development of ECR ion sources and rare isotope accelerators, Leitner has held a number of leadership roles in her 20+ year career at Berkeley Lab, including work on large-scale DOE projects such as FRIB, GRETA, DESI, and the ALS-U. She served as the Engineering Division's Deputy for Science from 2017-2024. She is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a graduate of the DOE Project Leadership Institute program. Leitner received her Ph.D. in Physics from the Vienna Technical University for contributions to plasma physics fusion experiments.

Reiner Kruecken was appointed Nuclear Science Division Director in June 2022. An internationally renowned nuclear physicist, his primary research focuses on the structure and dynamics of atomic nuclei. Prior to joining Berkeley Lab, he worked across a broad spectrum of nuclear science, including exotic nuclei and nuclear astrophysics, neutrinoless double beta-decay, heavy-ion collisions, and applied nuclear physics. Kruecken received his Ph.D. in nuclear physics from the University of Cologne, Germany, followed by a postdoctoral position at Berkeley Lab studying nuclear physics using the Gammasphere detector.

Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille picture.

Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille was appointed Physics Division Director in August 2021. Her research focuses on the study of dark matter and dark energy, and she has played instrumental roles in several international collaborations throughout her career, including the ANTARES undersea neutrino experiment, the SuperNova Legacy Survey, and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. She is currently a member of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration and has served as DESI co-spokesperson since 2018. Palanque-Delabrouille received her Ph.D. jointly from the University of Chicago and the University of Paris-Diderot, contributing to the EROS search for dark matter objects using microlensing.