Four new members named to UChicago Argonne LLC board

UChicago Argonne LLC has named four new members to its Board of Governors for Argonne National Laboratory. The new members are Richard Morimoto, the Bill and Gayle Cook professor of biology at Northwestern University; Don Randel, president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and President Emeritus of the University; John Fees, COO of BWX Technologies Inc.; and Noel Watson, CEO of Jacobs Engineering Inc.

UChicago Argonne LLC is the new organization that the U.S. Department of Energy chose to manage and operate Argonne National Laboratory. The LLC brings together the scientific leadership and expertise of the University—the sole member of the LLC—with the best management practices of Jacobs Engineering and BWXT. The Board of Governors helps oversee and guide Argonne research, operations and management. Members of the board are chosen from faculty, administrators and trustees of the University, from other universities, from national and international organizations, and from industry. In addition, the Director of Argonne, Robert Rosner, the William E. Wrather Disting-uished Service Professor in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Physics and the College, is an ex-officio member of the board.

“I am pleased to welcome these distinguished leaders to the Board of Governors for Argonne,” said President Zimmer, who also is Chairman of the UChicago Argonne LLC Board of Governors for Argonne. “Their knowledge and experience will enhance the laboratory’s mission to seek solutions to a wide variety of scientific challenges for the benefit of the nation.”

Morimoto is the director of the Rice Institute for Biomedical Research at Northwestern University. His research examines the molecular basis for neurodegenerative diseases, including Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS and Alzheimer’s disease.

Morimoto served as dean of the graduate school and associate provost of graduate education at Northwestern University from 1998 to 2004, and previously as chair of the department of biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology. He joined the Northwestern faculty in 1982.

Randel served as President of the University from 2000 to 2006, when he also served as chair of the Argonne Board of Governors. He joined the Cornell University faculty in the department of music in 1968. Thereafter he served as department chair, vice-provost, and associate dean and then dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. In 1995, he was named provost of Cornell University.

Fees joined BWXT in 1979 at its Nuclear Products Division in Lynchburg, Va. During his time there, he managed engineering and project management for national security programs. Fees transferred to Diamond Power in 1993 as general manager of manufacturing and was named president of Diamond Power in 1994.

In 1997, Fees returned to BWXT as president of BWXT Services Inc., which provides management and technical services to federal agencies. In 2002, he was named president and COO of BWXT, which includes the responsibility for all BWXT operations nationwide.

Jacobs Engineering founder Joseph Jacobs recruited Watson in 1960. He left for a few years but returned in 1965 and has been with the company ever since. Over the years, Watson has worked in several roles and in several locations for the company. First a process engineer and then a project manager, he assumed successive senior management positions until ultimately becoming president in 1987, and CEO in 1992. He became chairman in 2004 and executive chairman in 2006.

The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts basic and applied scientific research across a spectrum of disciplines, ranging from high-energy physics to biotechnology. Since 1990, Argonne scientists have worked with more than 600 companies and numerous federal agencies and other organizations to help advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for the future.

UChicago Argonne LLC manages Argonne for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. It brings together the expertise of researchers at the University with Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. and BWX Technologies, Inc. Together with its new partners, and through important alliances with Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Illinois at Chicago, UChicago Argonne LLC pursues innovation and discovery that serves the national interest.