Stephen Streiffer

Stephen K. Streiffer was appointed interim director of SLAC in February 2023 after eight months as Stanford vice president for SLAC and 24 years at Argonne National Laboratory.

As Stanford vice president for SLAC, his role was to ensure that the lab was being managed and operated in accordance with Stanford’s contract with the Department of Energy, and to help the lab, particularly the lab director, deliver on its commitment to carry out the DOE’s scientific mission.

At Argonne, Streiffer helped develop and guide the lab’s scientific and technical portfolio, articulate the lab’s strategic priorities and collaborate with Department of Energy colleagues to address issues impacting the DOE and the national research and development enterprise.

He held a number of senior roles there, including deputy director for science and technology, associate laboratory director for photon sciences and director of the Advanced Photon Source, one of the world’s most productive hard X-ray light sources.

Streiffer earned his bachelor’s degree in materials science and engineering from Rice University in 1987 and his doctoral degree from Stanford in 1993.

His scientific expertise is in investigating the nanoscale properties of materials, including nanostructured complex oxides, in particular using transmission electron microscopy and X-ray scattering techniques. He is a member of the Materials Research Society and IEEE as well as a fellow of the American Physical Society.