Cynthia Jenks
Cynthia Jenks has been appointed Director of the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division. Her appointment is effective July 10, 2017.
Jenks currently serves as the assistant director for scientific planning and the director of the Chemical and Biological Science Division at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Ames Laboratory. She has also served as a co-lead for DOE’s “Energy Everywhere” initiative, a coalition among 12 national laboratories to develop solutions to convert diverse, distributed waste feedstocks into fuel and chemicals through modular processes.
As Ames’s assistant director for scientific planning, she played a central role in the development of Ames’s new strategic plan. She has overseen the annual lab planning process and assisted in the formation of Ames’s branding and marketing plans.
Jenks received her B.S. in chemical engineering in 1986 from the University of California, Los Angeles. She received an M.S. degree in chemical engineering in 1988, and an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia University in 1991 and 1992, respectively. Her research interests include surface structure and reactivity, surface structure-property relationships, catalysis and thin-film growth.
In 2011, she was inducted as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science because of her “major discoveries about surfaces of aluminum-rich quasicrystals, for sustained scientific outreach, and [her] leadership in scientific planning within the Ames Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy.”