Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Keynote Speakers
Burt Thomas, U.S. Department of Energy- Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI)
Burt grew up fishing in the Meramec river of Missouri and completed a BS in Geology at the University of Missouri in 2001. He finished a dual-degree PhD in Geosciences and Biogeochemistry at Penn State in 2008 and went on to a Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellowship at the USGS, eventually serving as Project Chief for Brine Geochemistry at the USGS in Menlo Park, CA. Burt left the federal service to join Battelle eventually supervising DOE efforts at the NETL lab in Albany, OR. If you didn’t know, The Albany NETL Lab was, at the height of the cold war, the largest mineral processing research center in the US Bureau of Mines. Burt spent 3 years leading the National Energy Technology Lab’s internal research efforts related to Critical Minerals on behalf of the DOE office of Fossil Energy, and served on the Executive Leadership Team of the Critical Minerals Innovation Hub led by Ames National Lab prior to joining DOE headquarters. In 2024 Burt became the Division Director for the Minerals Sustainability Division of the DOE Office of Fossil Energy in 2024. In 2025 His Division was elevated to an Office in the newly reorganized Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation Office. Burt is now the Office Director of Advanced Mining and Mineral Production Technologies where his office funds Programs in the upstream of the mines and metals supply chain and focuses significant effort on recovery technologies for mineral resources, mining technology, and technologies for mineral deposit characterization and discovery.
Anna Wendt, National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL)
Anna Wendt is a Research Physical Scientist with the United States Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory, where her work focuses on the characterization and resource potential of critical materials in unconventional feedstocks. Anna was previously the Program Manager for Resource Characterization in DOE’s Minerals Sustainability Division in the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management. She is also the Convenor of the Joint Working Group on Sustainability in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee 298 on Rare Earths and the project lead for the development of a rare earths and lithium value chain sustainability standard. She earned her PhD in Geosciences from The Pennsylvania State University where her research focused on the geochemistry and depositional history of the unconventional shale gas play, the Marcellus Formation, Pennsylvania, USA.
Gail McLean, U.S. Department of Energy - Office of Science
Dr. McLean is the Director of the Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences (CSGB) Division in DOE's Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES). She joined the Division in 2008 as a program manager for Photosynthetic Systems and transitioned to Team Lead of Photochemistry and Biochemistry in 2013. Her professional career has been primarily dedicated to federal scientific program management and leadership. Her Ph.D. is in molecular genetics, and her prior research includes studies of plant cytoskeletal proteins, Agrobacterium signaling mechanisms, and cell-to-cell transport. Prior to joining DOE in 2008, she was a National Program Leader in the USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (now the National Institute of Food and Agriculture) where she led basic research competitive programs in plant science; she also served as the Acting Integrated Programs Director. Dr. McLean is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Jacob Ward, U.S. Department of Energy - CMEI
Dr. Jacob Ward serves as Director for the Analysis and Strategy Office in the United States Department of Energy’s Office Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation, where he leads analytical and strategic coordination across critical minerals, materials, and manufacturing across supply chains, from up- to mid- and downstream, and technology development pipelines, from applied R&D to commercialization, scale, and production. Previously, Dr. Ward worked with U.S. DOE’s then-Vehicle Technologies Office, where he served as the Program Manager for operations and analysis, the Acting Program Manager for mobility systems, and the Director for DOE’s sustainable-transportation industry partnership. He holds a Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy and Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Georgetown University and the University of Texas at Austin, respectively.