LBNL Director Steps Down

Charles Shank, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for the past 15 years, announced he is leaving the position and returning to a faculty post at the University of California, Berkeley. Shank, 60, the longest-serving Department of Energy national lab director, said he felt he had “accomplished what I’ve come here to do,” and noted that “any institution needs new leadership after 15 years.”

University of California President Robert Dynes said in a prepared statement that Shank “has made a major contribution to the cause of scientific advancement in this country.” In addition to overseeing a lab that is a major center for x-ray science with the Advanced Light Source x-ray synchrotron, Shank said he takes “great satisfaction” from having been a member of the Joint Genome Institute, which is a collaboration between Brookhaven, Lawrence Livermore, and Los Alamos national laboratories.

Dynes said Shank will play an important role in the university’s effort to keep the lab’s management contract when it is put up for bid by DOE at the end of 2005. Dynes said he is launching “an immediate nationwide search for a new laboratory director.”