Todd Schaef has been a staff member at PNNL for over 27 years and has attained the position of senior research scientist (IV). He is a team lead in the Geochemistry Group, subaccount manager for the Carbon Management and Fossil Energy sector's subsurface portfolio, and he has served as principal investigator, co-principal investigator, and project manager on a diverse range of projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and Solar Energy Technologies Office.

In these roles, Schaef leads proposals, manages project budgets, tracks milestones, prepares quarterly reports, presents findings to clients, and leads publications in high impact journals. Highlights of his recent work include efforts directed at greenhouse gas emission management and range from a field validation project to establishing research in water-bearing supercritical carbon dioxide (CO₂₎ fluids related to energy extraction technologies. He and researcher Pete McGrail have pioneered work at PNNL on geological storage of CO₂, publishing a substantial body of work investigating conversion to stable carbonate minerals. Those ideas were put to practical test in 2013 by completing the world’s first supercritical CO₂ injection into a basalt formation, located in southeastern Washington State; the feat was featured on the cover of Environmental Science and Technology Letters. Schaef also has conducted laboratory and field research on marine gas hydrates and ice-like methane-bearing solid clathrate, which included teaming with University of Alaska and British Petroleum. He has developed collaborations with the University of Michigan, St. Mary’s College, and University of Washington at St. Louis, while mentoring students and faculty through the DOE-sponsored Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship and Visiting Faculty Programs.

As part of business development at PNNL, Schaef provides leadership for project reviews, supporting institutional-level proposals spanning multiple directorates. He has received one patent for a downhole fluid injection system and has over 150 publications and presentations at national and international conferences, amassing >4,300 citations.