Physicist Moves from FBI to CIA

In August, physicist (and lifetime APS member) Donald Kerr, an assistant FBI director in charge of the bureau's crime laboratory, was named as the CIA' s next deputy director for science and technology. Kerr directed Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and spent 12 years in private industry before assuming control of the FBI lab in 1997. Kerr received his PhD in plasma physics from Cornell and worked at LANL from 1966 to 1976. In 1976 he became deputy manager of the Department of Energy's operations in Nevada, and three years later was named head of LANL. In 1985 Kerr left LANL to become president of EG&G, Inc., a manufacturing and engineering firm in Wellesley, MA. He then joined Science Corporation, a San Diego based consulting contractor, and in 1996 he spent a year as executive vice president of Information Systems Laboratories in San Diego. Joining the FBI in October 1997 "was not something I'd ever expected to do," Kerr admits. "But it was such an interesting opportunity." Of his varied career spanning research, industry, and corporate and government management he says, "I've been fortunate to have an unusual set of [career] opportunities."