Dr. Steven Ashby is Director of the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he sets PNNL’s strategic direction and oversees its $1.5 billion R&D budget. Under his leadership, PNNL’s nearly 6,100 talented staff members draw on signature capabilities in chemistry, Earth sciences, biology, and data science to advance scientific discovery, enable energy sustainability, and enhance national security.

Dr. Ashby previously served as PNNL's Deputy Director for Science and Technology, where he led institutional strategic planning, stewarded the Laboratory’s discretionary research portfolio, and oversaw technology commercialization, government relations, and research integrity.

Prior to joining PNNL in 2008, Dr. Ashby spent nearly 21 years at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where he oversaw the Computing Applications and Research Department and ultimately served as Deputy Principal Associate Director for Science and Technology. Dr. Ashby was the founding director of LLNL's Center for Applied Scientific Computing, which was established in 1996 and has since matured into one of the world's premier scientific computing research organizations.

As a widely recognized leader in computational science, Dr. Ashby has worked to advance the discipline throughout his career. His research focused on computational mathematics and scalable numerical algorithms; he is considered an expert in polynomial iterative methods and adaptive preconditioning techniques for large sparse linear systems. He remains active in the computational science community.

Dr. Ashby is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and the American Association for the Advancement of Science; member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences; Commissioner for the U.S. Council on Competitiveness; and serves on advisory committees for local and state organizations, including the Washington Roundtable.

He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.