Welcome

Ames National Laboratory director Karl Mueller. Photo by Christopher Gannon.

Karl Mueller started June 1 in his new role as director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames National Laboratory. He also holds the rank of tenured professor in the chemistry department.

Mueller arrives in Ames from the DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington, where he served for nearly 15 years in multiple roles, most recently as director of the program development office for the lab's Physical and Computational Sciences Directorate (2021-25). Prior to that, he served for six years as the directorate's chief science and technology officer.

Before joining the Pacific Northwest lab in 2010, Mueller had been a member of the chemistry faculty at Penn State University, University Park, for 17 years, rising to the rank of professor.

His research career includes more than 195 peer-reviewed papers detailing the development of magnetic resonance methods and applied studies in natural and engineered systems.

Mueller earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Rochester, New York, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. He completed a post-graduate studies certificate at the University of Cambridge, England, as a Churchill Scholar supported by the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States.

He was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011.

Mueller's office is in 311 TASF. He can be reached by phone at 294-2770, by email at director@ameslab.gov.