AMES, Iowa (AP) — The director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory is stepping down to lead a new institute and will be replaced on an interim basis by a scientist at the lab.
Alex King is leaving his position as director of the laboratory to head the organization’s Critical Materials Institute, which is developing solutions to domestic shortages of rare earth metals.
King will be replaced on an interim basis by Thomas Lograsso. He has worked as a scientist at the Ames Laboratory since 1988 and is now the interim deputy director and division director of materials sciences.
Lograsso also works at Iowa State University as an adjunct professor of materials science and engineering.
Iowa State, which operates the laboratory, will form a search committee for a permanent replacement.
