Vita - Thomas Bickel
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Thomas Bickel attended Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He received a Bachelors of Science degree with honors in Engineering Science in 1973. He attended the University of Texas, receiving a Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering in 1978. His graduate work was in the field of nonlinear, integer programming. Education honors included Trinity Presidential Scholarship, Alpha Chi National Honor Society, Omega Chi Epsilon National Chemical Engineering Society, Tau Beta Pi National Engineering Honor Society, Shell Foundation Fellowship, and Phillips Petroleum Fellowship.

Dr. Bickel has been employed at Sandia National Laboratories since 1978. From 1978 through 1990, as a Member of the Technical Staff, he performed research in areas of chemical kinetics, heat transfer and multiphase fluid dynamics of fossil fuels, and applied geophysics of petroleum reservoirs. Dr. Bickel left Sandia National Laboratories for a brief period in 1981 to become manager of the Engineering Department at Vedette Energy Company. He was responsible for the thermal and chemical performance of the Down-Hole Steam Generator for secondary and tertiary oil recovery. He subsequently returned to Sandia and was principal investigator on the joint Occidental Oil Shale/DOE Modified In Situ Oil Shale retorts 7 and 8, geophysical simulation and modeling of the surface electric potential of oil reservoirs, and high-temperature superconductivity material science research and application development.

In 1990 Dr. Bickel was appointed a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in recognition of his work in energy research. In 1991 Dr. Bickel became a Division Supervisor with responsibility for High-Temperature Superconductivity and Optical Properties Research. Subsequently, he was given responsibility of managing photovoltaic research on single-crystal and multicrystalline silicon materials and concentrating photovoltaic systems engineering.

In 1995 Dr. Bickel was appointed an American Society of Mechanical Engineers Federal Government Fellow attached to the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board in Washington, DC. He was the senior technical advisor to the Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development chaired by Dr. Daniel Yergin. At the completion of the Yergin Task Force, he became technical advisor to Deputy Secretary Charles Curtis and Pete Didisheim on the DOE Laboratory Operations Board, developing the Strategic Laboratory Missions Plan for the 28 DOE laboratory complex.

In 1996 Dr. Bickel returned to Sandia as the Manager of the Thermal Sciences Department, guiding work in massively parallel, computational simulation of the thermal response of nuclear weapons with programmatic responsibility for fundamental research in thermal sciences. In 1997 Dr. Bickel became the Deputy Director of the Engineering Sciences Center with responsibility for the stewardship of Engineering Sciences research and development at Sandia National Laboratories. He was subsequently appointed a Senior Manager. In 2000, Dr. Bickel was promoted to Director of Engineering Sciences at Sandia National Laboratories. In this role he has responsibility for the stewardship of R->D->A of the engineering disciplines at Sandia. With over 180 professional staff and a budget of $80M, he is responsible for the development of massively parallel computational mechanics software at Sandia as well as the experimental validation of the engineering models of the codes.

Dr. Bickel is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He is currently an Adjunct Professor of Chemical Engineering at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. He resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife Wendy and their three daughters. He is an Assistant Instructor in the National Association of Underwater Instructors and enjoys mountain biking and woodworking.

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