Kao Named SLAC Director

After a nearly 10-month search for a new director at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University decided to promote from within, naming Associate Director Chi-Chang Kao to the position Wednesday.

Stanford President John Hennessy said that a committee searched for months and considered dozens of candidates before deciding that “the best candidate for the job was clearly the one already at SLAC.”

Kao, who will assume his new position Nov. 1, will be SLAC’s fifth director, succeeding Persis S. Drell. Kao has worked at SLAC since 2010.

The laboratory is operated by Stanford for the Department of Energy, and Kao’s selection was made with the approval of Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

Before joining Stanford, Kao was chairman of the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory and also served as an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University, both in New York. He has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from National Taiwan University and a doctorate in chemical engineering from Cornell University in New York.

For more information, visit: www.slac.stanford.edu