Suresh Baskaran

Director of Research Partnerships, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Suresh Baskaran is the Director of Research Partnerships at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) where he is responsible for strategic partnerships with academic institutions. In his current role, Dr. Baskaran has worked with research organizations across PNNL to launch and grow five joint institutes between PNNL and universities in Washington (WSU and UW) and Oregon in critical areas for the state and the nation.  These institutes have advanced science and technology related to the electric grid, bioproducts, nuclear science and technology, materials science and precision medicine.  He streamlined national lab-university joint appointment processes and significantly expanded appointments with UW and WSU. He also helped establish and grow collaborative graduate programs between PNNL and northwest research universities.  Prior to this role, he was the chief science and technology officer for energy and environment, and manager for energy efficiency, transportation and renewable energy research programs at PNNL.  Dr. Baskaran’s research has focused on new materials for automotive, microelectronic and energy applications.  He has been serving on the WSAS membership committee, where he is chair of the Engineering and Technology section committee.  He earned his materials degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India (B.Tech.), Virginia Tech (MS), and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (PhD).