Michael J Pierce

Bio

Mike Pierce is the director of the Nonreactor Nuclear Facilities Division (NNFD) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The division operates, maintains, and modernizes ORNL’s unique complex of nuclear facilities to support the ongoing and increasing demand for isotope production and nuclear materials and fuels development. This includes facility infrastructure, staffing, and processes needed to support the R&D missions at the Radiochemical Engineering Development Center (REDC) and other hot cell facilities. These facilities allow for ORNL’s diverse nuclear R&D mission that includes materials and technologies for which ORNL is the recognized leader.

Mike first joined NNFD in 2004 as a facility manager, winning the Director’s Award for Outstanding Individual Accomplishment in Laboratory Operations in 2008. He became director of NNFD in 2014. Prior to joining ORNL, he spent nine years at the Y-12 National Security Complex, where he served as shift technical adviser and then operations manager for the Enriched Uranium Operations Division. He began his career in 1988 as a nuclear refueling engineer at Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Mike holds a bachelor of science degree in nuclear engineering from North Carolina State University and a master of science degree in industrial engineering from the University of Tennessee.