In its infancy, the universe was awash in fundamental particles. Over billions of years, matter cooled and clumped into stars and galaxies, tied together by a cosmic web of dark matter.

Working at the forefront of particle physics, SLAC scientists use powerful particle accelerators to create and study nature’s fundamental building blocks and forces, build sensitive detectors to search for new particles and develop theories that explain and guide experiments.

Accelerators form the backbone of SLAC's national user facilities. They are complicated machines, with hundreds of thousands of components that all need to be designed, engineered, operated and maintained to achieve the highest energy acceleration and the highest quality particle...

With their ability to penetrate matter and resolve individual atoms, X-rays and electrons are among scientists’ most useful tools for determining the structure and behavior of molecules and materials.

Modern technology creates new opportunities for society: Just think about how artificial intelligence has changed our cars and cell phone apps.

SLAC develops and deploys some of the world’s most advanced scientific tools for exploring how the universe works at the biggest, smallest and fastest scales. Here we explain how they work and the exciting discoveries they make possible.

The lab is organized into six scientific directorates, each of which plays an important role in advancing our lab, backed by our core operations teams all supporting our shared mission.

Learn about SLAC’s senior leadership, directorates and core teams below. For an overview of our organizational structure, you can download the interactive PDF org chart.