Katherine J. Evans

Katherine “Kate” Evans is the associate laboratory director for the Biological and Environmental Systems Science Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), where she leads research and strategy to advance national priorities in energy security, biotechnology innovation, and infrastructure resilience. She previously served as director of ORNL’s Office of Institutional Strategic Planning, guiding laboratory-wide science and technology strategy and leading the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program. She played a central role in initiatives such as “Accelerating Southeast Resilience at ORNL” and the Quantum Roadmap.

Evans previously served as director of ORNL’s Computational Sciences and Engineering Division, which covers scalable computing to address large scientific challenges across the physical, engineering, health, and quantum information sciences. Evans is also an active researcher in the areas of Earth system model development and evaluation with a focus on implementing scalable numerical algorithms and analysis of large-scale persistent weather patterns in global atmospheric models. She applies insights from these models to other applications including ice sheets, more general fluid flow, disease propagation, and oncology.

Evans earned her PhD in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences with an emphasis in math from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2000, where she was awarded the William Rhodes fellowship and the senior Dean’s fellowship for most outstanding senior PhD student. She joined ORNL in 2007 after a post-doctoral research appointment and staff member position at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the Decision Applications and Theoretical Divisions. She serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Met Office, the Scientific Advisory Board for Platforms for Advanced Scientific Computing, and has presented a number of keynote and public talks for international conferences. Evans also serves on the faculty of the University of Tennessee’s Bredesen Center and on the board of the American Red Cross of East Tennessee. She is a member of the American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, and the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematicians, where she received the 2024 prize for the Mathematics of the Planet Earth activity group.