DOE Office of Science Reorganizes Management Structure
Harriet Kung, deputy director for science programs in the DOE Office of Science, represented the office at a recent House Science Committee hearing. Following a reorganization taking effect this week, she is now the office’s highest-ranking civil servant alongside Juston Fontaine, deputy director for operations.
(House Science Committee)
The Department of Energy Office of Science, the largest federal funder of fundamental physical sciences research, implemented a reorganization effective April 9 that eliminates the role of principal deputy director, previously its top civil service position.
The department created the role three years ago and the only person to hold it in that time was Steve Binkley, who departed in January to take up a position in DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration. Before his elevation to principal deputy, Binkley had served as the office’s deputy director for science programs and was its acting director for extended periods during the Trump and Biden administrations.
Units reporting to the principal deputy director have been distributed between the Office of Science’s two current deputy directors, who remain in place: Deputy Director for Field Operations Juston Fontaine, with the new title deputy director for operations, and Deputy Director for Science Programs Harriet Kung. Updated organizational charts are available here .
Notable shifts include the creation of an Office of Equity and Workforce Development, temporarily led by Kung, that encompasses two existing offices: the Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists and the Office of Scientific Workforce Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
The Isotope R&D and Production program, which was once part of the Nuclear Physics program and had been under the principal deputy director, is now within the operations portfolio, while the Accelerator R&D and Production program is now within the science programs portfolio.
