The Senate approved Jill Hruby, former director of Sandia National Laboratories, by a 79-16 vote to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration and serve as undersecretary for nuclear security at the Department of Energy.
“Jill is one of DOE’s very best success stories—rising through the ranks at Sandia National Labs to become the first woman to lead a national security lab, and now she’ll lead our efforts to maintain a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent and protect our national security,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a release Thursday.
Hruby started her career at SNL in 1983 as a technical staff member and conducted studies about thermal and fluid, solar energy and nuclear weapon systems.
She held the director position at the multimission laboratory from 2015 to 2017 while serving as president of Sandia Corp., which operated the facility between October 1993 and April 30, 2017.
Following her retirement from SNL, she worked as the first Sam Nunn Distinguished fellow at the Nuclear Threat Initiative and as a member of the Defense Science Board and the NNSA Defense Programs Advisory Committee.