Jeff Sims works closely with laboratory leadership to effectively operate with high stakeholder satisfaction the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC) scientific user facility. Michigan State University operates FRIB, supporting the mission of the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics and a community of 1,800 scientists worldwide. In close coordination with the FRIB leadership team, he integrates DOE-SC policies and expectations with federal, state, and local processes and practices, and establishes strategic and proactive programs to meet stakeholder expectations.
As deputy laboratory director, Jeff helps foster a positive laboratory climate infused with values of scientific and engineering excellence, innovation, and discovery, and a servant-leadership approach to ensure high-quality, timely, and transparent user-facility operational effectiveness.
Jeff brings to FRIB more than 30 years of project management, engineering, and construction experience on large, complex science facilities across four DOE national laboratories: Los Alamos National Laboratory, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and Fermi National Laboratory.
While at SLAC Jeff also served as director of DOE’s Project Leadership Institute (PLI), which develops project leaders across the DOE complex through hands-on practice and graduate level coursework. At Los Alamos, he continued as deputy of director of PLI.
Most recently, as senior director for projects at Los Alamos, he served as executive advisor and interim project director for Scorpius, a $1.75 billion particle accelerator project for the weapons stockpile stewardship program. Jeff also led the Battelle Laboratories Project Support Office to facilitate project success and share resources with Battelle laboratories.
A graduate of Southern Illinois University with a bachelor’s degree in structural engineering, Jeff is a licensed professional engineer, licensed structural engineer, and certified project management professional.