Karl Mueller

Director Ames National Laboratory

Karl Mueller became Director of Ames National Laboratory in 2025. Previously, Mueller served as the director of the Program Development Office for the Physical and Computational Sciences Directorate (PCSD) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington. Prior to that, he served for six years as Chief Science and Technology Officer for PCSD. Mueller moved to PNNL in 2010 after rising to the rank of full professor in the Department of Chemistry at Pennsylvania State University. Mueller’s scholarly record includes more than 195 peer-reviewed papers detailing the development of magnetic resonance methods and applied studies in natural and engineered systems. In addition to serving as director of Ames National Laboratory, Mueller holds the rank of tenured professor in the Department of Chemistry.