Naval scientist to head Applied Physics Lab
May 23, 2003
The Applied Physics Laboratory has a new director with ties to the U.S. Navy, which provided two-thirds of the lab's funding last fiscal year.
Jeffrey Simmen will permanently replace Robert Spindel as director of the self-sufficient lab, which brought $43 million in grants and contracts to the UW last fiscal year.
Simmen received his bachelor's and doctoral degrees in applied mathematics from the California Institute of Technology and his master's from Cornell University. He taught and conducted research at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and did postdoctoral research in UC-Santa Cruz's physics department.
He spent the past decade in Arlington, Va., directing the ocean-acoustics program for the Office of Naval Research. More than 100 members of the scientific community served under him there, where he launched several special multi-disciplinary research initiatives. He has also researched operations and tactics for submarine warfare with the Center for Naval Analyses in Alexandria, Va., and Italy.
At the UW, Simmen will head a lab manned by oceanographers, polar scientists, physicists and engineers working on such projects as tracking global ocean changes and developing an ultrasound instrument to treat trauma victims likely to bleed to death.
The lab pays its 240 employees and provides support for several dozen graduate students with grants and contracts instead of state money. Besides the Navy, the National Science Foundation, NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency fund the lab.
Spindel directed the lab for 16 years, seeing the lab more than double its funding and expand its position at the University to include teaching. Spindel shares something in common with Simmen -- he is also an expert on long-distance underwater sound energy. Spindel will remain on the lab's faculty and continue research at the lab.
Simmen is scheduled to take his position July 1; however, his appointment is subject to the approval of the Board of Regents.
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