D.E. 'Dori' Ellis Lands High Post At Sandia Labs

LIVERMORE, CA — One of the Bay Area's top professional women will be taking over as deputy director at Sandia Laboratories starting June 28. A company veteran, D.E. “Dori” Ellis will succeed David Douglass who is retiring this month, it was announced recently. In her new role—which will require her to leave Livermore's Sandia site for a relocation in Albuquerque—Ellis will be the company’s second-in-charge.

“Dori’s breadth of knowledge in national security, deep experience within the national laboratory system and years of management at all levels at Sandia made her the ideal choice to serve as deputy laboratories director,” said Sandia Laboratories Director Steve Younger. “I am confident that Dori will continue moving Sandia forward on the path to applying best business practices and delivering on our commitments to the nation.”

Sandia Labs, which provides research and development into nuclear deterrence, global security, defense, energy technologies and economic competitiveness, had conducted a nationwide search for a deputy director before naming Ellis.

Ellis first joined Sandia in 1978 and served in multiple high-level leadership positions through 2011, according to the company. During the next six years she owned a consulting firm, served as the director of strategic development at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and was the executive director of operations for the Office of National Laboratories as part of the University of California’s Office of the President, according to the company.

Ellis rejoined Sandia in 2017 as associate laboratories director of Sandia’s Livermore site, where she had additional labs-wide responsibilities for leadership of programs in energy and homeland security, according to the company. She took over the Livermore facility during a time of rapid hiring to meet crucial national priorities, according to the company. As a result, she established a new labs-wide business unit that includes energy and homeland security and refocused those activities on threat-driven national security issues, according to the company.

Ellis is a charter member of the National Women’s History Museum and a board member for the California Council on Science and Technology, the Bay Area Science and Innovation Consortium and the Co-Optimization of Fuels & Engines Initiative. She has been the U.S. representative to the International Atomic Energy Advisory Board on Nuclear Security and an adviser to the National Academy of Sciences.