PNNL

Chris Aardahl is a sector manager for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. His principal role is outreach to intelligence community and homeland security partners, industry, and academia to deliver multidisciplinary research, development, and operations capabilities to address important missions and technical challenges.

Before roles in program development, Aardahl served as division director for signatures science and technology, which included principal line management functions for 350-plus researchers and support staff. Activities included strategic capability planning, recruiting and management of staff resources, and planning for lab infrastructure and equipment. Capabilities within the division supported the national research base in weapons of mass destruction signatures and forensics, proliferation detection, and applicable treaty monitoring. Aardahl also previously served as the technical group manager for advanced radioanalytical chemistry and team lead for functional multiscale materials.

Before management assignments, Aardahl was principal investigator, co-principal investigator, chief engineer, or project manager for over $30M in research and development projects since joining Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in 1998. Past research interests include chemical hydrogen storage, automation of nuclear materials characterization for nonproliferation and treaty monitoring activities, heterogeneous catalysis and non-thermal plasma discharges for a variety of applications, aerosol chemical-physics, and weapons of mass destruction signature collection. 

Aardahl has been awarded 12 U.S. patents and is coauthor of 48 peer-reviewed publications and reports. In 2003, Aardahl was part of a team that received a Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for Technology Transfer for the development of plasma-facilitated lean NOx catalysis, and in 2009, he received the Department of Energy Hydrogen Program R&D Award. 

Aardahl received a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Washington in 1997 and a BS in chemical engineering from the University of California, Davis in 1992. 

• PhD in Chemical Engineering, University of Washington 
• BS in Chemical Engineering, University of California, Davis