John L. Sarrao

Since March 2013, John Sarrao has been the Associate Director for Theory, Simulation, and Computation (AD-TSC) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). As AD-TSC, he leads the Laboratory's efforts in applying science-based prediction to existing and emerging national security missions. TSC is a ~700 person organization with an annual budget of ~$300M spanning the Laboratory’s Theoretical; Computer, Computational, and Statistical Sciences; and High Performance Computing organizations. Previously, Sarrao was the Program Director for Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Office of Science Programs, a $100M/y portfolio; and for MaRIE (Matter-Radiation Interactions in Extremes), LANL’s signature facility concept which will provide transformational materials solutions for national security challenges. John has also served on a number of U.S. Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC) Subcommittees, helping to set strategic directions for materials research.

John received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1993 based on thesis work performed at LANL.  He returned to LANL as a technical staff member in 1997 following postdoctoral research with Zachary Fisk at the University of California, San Diego and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. John’s primary research interest is in the synthesis and characterization of correlated electron systems, especially actinide materials.  He is the coauthor of over 540 publications, including 60 papers in Physical Review Letters, Nature, and Science. These publications have been cited more than 12,000 times. He was the 2004 winner of the LANL Fellows Prize for Research, in part for his discovery of the first plutonium superconductor; and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Physical Society (APS), and Los Alamos National Laboratory.