Celebrating the Start of SURATech Leadership at Jefferson Lab
Washington, D.C. – This month, the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) began a new phase of leadership at Jefferson Lab under SURATech, a strategic partnership with Virginia Tech designed to lead the laboratory’s next chapter.
To commemorate the start of SURATech’s stewardship at the laboratory, the SURATech team and partners joined together at Jefferson Lab for the SURATech Day One Celebration and shared their plans for the coming years. “As we celebrate today, we also look ahead. The real work begins now,” stated Jefferson Lab Director Jens Dilling. “Jefferson Lab has extraordinary potential to shape the scientific landscape of the next decade.”
A History of Leadership at Jefferson Lab
While SURATech begins a new chapter at the laboratory, its leadership continues a decades-long history of SURA stewardship. At the Celebration, SURA President and CEO Sean Hearne and Virginia Tech Senior Vice President and Chief Research and Innovation Officer Dan Sui unveiled a new plaque for Jefferson Lab recognizing the past and present stewards of the management and operating (M&O) contract at the laboratory: SURA, Jefferson Science Associates (JSA), and SURATech.
Jefferson Lab was built by SURA in the 1980s, and SURA has continuously operated the laboratory since its inception through these different entities: under SURA until 2006, through JSA until 2026, and now as partners with Virginia Tech through SURATech.
The SURATech Team
With SURATech, SURA begins a new collaboration with Virginia Tech founded on a shared commitment to driving research excellence and developing the scientific workforce. Sui lauded this joint venture during his remarks at the Celebration, saying “[Virginia Tech is] honored to join SURA and the [team] at Jefferson Lab as we help shape the laboratory’s future together.”
Building on a relationship between SURA and Virginia Tech that spans over 40 years, this partnership integrates decades of experience with new opportunities for the future of Jefferson Lab.
Along with SURATech leadership, the Celebration recognized SURATech integrated subcontractors – Akima, AtkinsRéalis, Honeywell, and Longenecker & Associates – for their important contributions to the SURATech team and their role in supporting Jefferson Lab’s next era of growth.
Looking Forward
Under SURATech’s leadership, Jefferson Lab is poised to grow into a multi-purpose national laboratory, accelerating scientific innovation in nuclear physics, data science, and applied research. In this new phase, SURATech is launching the Spark Institute, a consortium of nine Virginia universities dedicated to building scientific capacity in data science, nuclear science, and quantum technologies. This collaborative hub, in partnership with Jefferson Lab, will strengthen the scientific workforce and advance science and technology research aligned with the needs of the nation and the DOE’s mission.
In his closing remarks at the Celebration, Hearne emphasized these plans for the future: “Together with our partners, we will achieve the [SURATech] vision to ‘ignite a bold new era of discovery as a dynamic, multi-program national laboratory at the forefront of science and innovation.'”
Photo by Aileen Devlin | Jefferson Lab
Media Contact:
Anna Rader Groves
SURA Senior Advisor, Government Relations and Communications
Email: arader@sura.org
