PNNL

As the chief science and technology officer for the National Security Directorate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Mark Schraad is a member of the directorate’s leadership team supporting the associate laboratory director for national security in the leadership, management, operations, and administration of the directorate. Schraad’s primary responsibilities include evolving a national security strategy that aligns with PNNL strategy and supports sponsor priorities, coordinating science and technology investments, and strengthening strategic partnerships with peer institutions, industry, and academia.

Before joining PNNL, Schraad spent nearly 30 years at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). He most recently served as the program director for digital transformation for weapons engineering, responsible for modernizing weapons design and production processes through the development and adoption of digital, data, and AI technologies. From 2018 to 2023, Schraad served as LANL’s division leader for computational physics, responsible for the development and delivery of LANL’s suite of multi-physics software products used in the design, certification, and assessment of the U.S. nuclear stockpile. Over his career, he served LANL in a series of line and program leadership positions across several directorates spanning basic science and mission application portfolios.

Schraad began his career at LANL in 1996 as a postdoctoral research associate in the Theoretical Division’s Fluid Dynamics and Solid Mechanics Group (T-3), joining that group’s materials physics team and carrying out research in meso-scale to continuum-scale materials physics theory, with special interests in material structure, material instabilities, and coupled fluid–solid systems.

Schraad is passionate about formulating effective science and technology strategies, building collaborative teams that integrate capabilities at the intersection of science, computing, and emerging technology, and enabling successful mission execution for national security and energy security applications.

Schraad was awarded a PhD in aerospace engineering, along with MS degrees in both aerospace engineering and mathematics, from the University of Michigan, and a BS degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Minnesota.

• PhD in Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan 
• MS in Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan 
• MS in Mathematics, University of Michigan
• BS in Aerospace Engineering, University of Minnesota