
Through the decades, many highly talented leaders, scientists, and engineers have come and gone at the Lab. Yet the Lab has continued to enjoy a reputation of excellence and to provide scientific leadership to the nation. This long-standing leadership is not an accident but a result of thoughtful planning around talent development and execution of these plans. At the Lab-level, Human Resources and the Lab Directorate have worked to ensure equitable and attractive pay and benefits, lead and support hiring efforts, and offer many career development programs. Recently, a new careers website was developed to showcase the Lab as an employer of choice.
Of course, much of the work of preparing the next generation of scientists at the Lab also happens at the area and division level. To get a sense of this work at the division level, Research News talked about this topic to a couple of division leaders – Jens Birkholzer, director of Earth and Environmental Sciences Area (EESA)’s Energy Geosciences Division (EGD) and Henrik von der Lippe, director of the Physical Sciences Area (PSA)’s Engineering Division, who are both retiring this year and who have been thinking a lot about this topic. Research News also spoke to Tina Clarke, Principal HR Division Partner and a member of the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI)’s leadership team. Talent acquisition and management staff from Human Resources work closely with divisions and areas across the Lab to ensure a strong next generation of researchers and engineers.
Strategic Hiring for Growth
Hiring was a critical need for EGD from the first day that Jens took the helm. “When Earth Sciences was split into the Energy Geosciences and the Climate and Ecosystem Sciences divisions in 2015, and I took on the role of EGD’s director, we quickly realized that we were pretty senior-heavy. That meant we had to be intentional about succession planning. We looked at where we needed to hire, both for new skills and to replace skills, as well as where we have early career talent and how we could accelerate bringing this talent up to the next career levels.”
Hiring was guided by the division and area’s strategic plans, noted Jens. “We were already looking at a number of growth opps in additional topics at that time: critical infrastructure, minerals, subsurface energy storage, carbon removal and mineralization, and sustainable groundwater management,” he said.
Continued Jens, “Hiring is dependent on funding, which creates an ongoing conundrum. Often, at national labs, people are reluctant to hire when funding is uncertain; we consciously took some calculated risks to ensure that we were strategically building our team. For example, we brought in new expertise in geophysical monitoring, carbon removal, and critical infrastructure, which were areas in which the DOE was increasingly focused.”
Henrik von der Lippe, the Lab’s Chief Engineer and director of the Engineering Division, is also retiring this summer. He has also been focused on hiring a new generation of staff in the Engineering Division. In fact, the Engineering Division almost doubled in the last several years, from 250 to 450 staff members. Much of the increase in staffing was driven by the needs of the ALS-U, and many of the hires were recent graduates, early career professionals, or researchers. That meant a lot of training for the hires to build practical experience for their current work and their careers.
Training for Today’s Projects and Tomorrow’s
“We gave our early career staff technical stretch assignments. We’ve encouraged them to practice teamwork and project management. Team science is big at Berkeley Lab, so being able to be successful in a team project is important. Team projects also give our staff opportunities to build leadership skills,” said Henrik.
“Where possible, we aligned training, whether it was classes or attending conferences or on-the-job training, with staff members’ areas of specialty,” continued Henrik. And we organized our teams so that staff members could have a “home” where they could avail themselves of senior expertise and get guidance on tackling particular problems so that they could build towards becoming subject matter experts.”
Training has, of course, been much on Jens’ mind over the years. EGD does a lot of on-the-job training, where early career scientists and engineers are exposed to new projects and are building their skills. “Supervisors work with individuals to build an individual development plan with different areas of emphasis at different stages of their career,” said Jens. “For example, early-career scientists may be more focused on publishing and building their scientific CVs, while those who already have solid scientific CVs could be polishing their skills in writing grant proposals, working with clients and stakeholders, and learning about project management.”
“EESA is already informally tracking individuals’ career development training activities,” continued Jens. “But I’d love to have a system that codifies each person’s career development plan, offers relevant training options at the right time, and tracks when the training programs have been completed,” he mused.
In fact, individual development plans are not just career development plans, they are also retention plans,” said Tina. “There are people who have been with the JGI for decades, whose careers have grown along with the JGI.” Tina notes that while the JGI plays an important role in training talent for the community – its alumni have joined startups, larger companies, government, and academia – the JGI has worked hard to offer opportunities for growth, skill development, and the application of those skills, so that employees can have a great career at the Lab.
Echoing Jens’ and Henrik’s remarks, Tina noted that the JGI is also training the next generation through stretch assignments, leadership training, and other learning opportunities. “Individual development plans are informed by the individual’s needs and interests as well as the Area and Division’s strategic plans and needs.”
Tina also highlighted the need to focus on key roles. She noted, “Succession planning is important across the Lab. The JGI has long been thinking about key roles, knowledge transfer, and the evolution of roles, ensuring that upcoming talent is prepared to step into these roles.”
Jens speaks highly of training and career development efforts at the Lab. “I think that the Stewardship Summit is really really good for leadership training and also for cohort building. There are the self-driven LinkedIn training programs, science and grant writing workshops, and many other programs at the Lab to support career development.”
Tips for Career Development
When asked about advice to offer postdocs and early career scientists, Jens offers: “Be open to trying new directions; if you are interested in an area that the DOE is highlighting and you have some relevant skills or ideas, consider putting up your hand. A bit of a broader portfolio can be a good thing. Volunteer your time, whether it’s to participate in an IDEA committee, to start a club, or to give a presentation. Go to coffee hours and open office hours. These opportunities, even if they are not directly related to your scientific work, will raise your visibility and build your Lab network.”
When asked about the types of skills that the next generation of researchers and engineers will need, Henrik pointed to artificial intelligence and machine learning skills. “AI/ML will help us be more successful in building and optimizing the experimental projects that we want to do, and the more we are ready, the better off we are,” said Henrik.
Another skill that Henrik pointed out is the ability to connect or combine different technologies. “The ability to combine the right theories, methods, and technologies while optimizing each, the ability to optimize the entire system for the purpose, is going to be ever more important. That means that our engineers need to be experts in their area but also to branch out. Systems engineering – combining the mechanical, electrical, and optical components for peak performance – the ability to connect all these pieces, is key. This ability to combine different areas into a whole system is also important in other fields.”
At the same time, Henrik cautioned that engineers and scientists need to understand how new technologies work rather than blindly trusting them. “If you don’t understand how the technology works and how the results are generated, you can’t trust the results. And ensuring we have this understanding will be a challenge as the speed with which new technologies emerge continues to accelerate.”