Justine Johannes

As the Associate Labs Director for Global Security at Sandia National Laboratories, Justine Johannes leads the Global Security portfolio, including global threat reduction, nuclear risk reduction, and nonproliferation and international security programs.

Justine began her career at Sandia National Laboratories in 1994 after completing her Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and her PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Her early career focused on chemical kinetics and integration of verification and validation in developing predictive capabilities.

In 2005, Justine was promoted to Senior Manager in the Materials Science and Engineering Center, and in 2010, she moved to the Nuclear Weapons Science & Technology Program Center as the program manager for the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program.

Justine was named Director of the Engineering Sciences Center in 2013. In that role she had responsibility for advancing and integrating theory, computational simulation, and experimental discovery to understand and predict the behavior of complex engineered systems. In May 2017, Justine became the Director for Asset Security and WMD Response where she had three primary responsibilities: technology development and deployment for critical asset protection, advanced technology to prevent the use of WMD, and emergency planning and response.

In May 2020, Justine returned to the Material, Physical, and Chemical Sciences Center as the Director. In this capacity she directed the Center in providing materials expertise and innovation to enable success in national security missions. Justine was responsible for leading Sandia’s Materials Research Foundation, ensuring that the R&D performed sustained and grew the expertise for the Laboratory.