Dr. Julie Carrera serves as the Director of the Strategic Security Sciences Division at Argonne National Laboratory. She was previously the Deputy Director of the division. As director, Dr. Carrera leads a team devoted to developing and implementing practical approaches and technical solutions to address complex, enduring, and emerging threats to national and global security.

Throughout her nearly 20-year career at Argonne, Dr. Carrera has established Argonne’s national and international credentials as a trusted source of technical analysis for nonproliferation policy and regulations aimed at stemming the spread of chemical and biological weapons (CBW). Her technical and policy expertise — and that of the team she has built — has helped enable U.S. interagency and multilateral consensus on CBW nonproliferation measures. Dr. Carrera facilitated the diversification of Argonne’s nonproliferation portfolio by identifying new combinations of capabilities across groups, divisions, and directorates, thus enabling them to positively impact national security. Some examples of her work include the Advanced Supply Chain Analytics initiative which she founded and a multidisciplinary research portfolio that she developed which is dedicated to identifying ways to prevent the misuse of emerging technologies of security concern. She continues to grow the emerging technology portfolio, especially by connecting with Argonne experts who work in strategic areas from biotechnology to artificial intelligence to quantum information sciences. She also co-leads Argonne’s strategic initiative on Imaging and Detection of Signatures which seeks to advance the science of sensing, detection, and imaging of signatures to enable scientific discoveries and translate those discoveries to strengthen U.S. national security.

Dr. Carrera demonstrates a strong and proven record of service and leadership across Argonne. She served as co-chair of the Energy and Global Security Directorate (EGS) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Council while the council transitioned from a largely independent working group to an advisory council working in close cooperation with the EGS Associate Laboratory Director and the EGS Leadership Team. Many of the DEI accomplishments under her leadership have permeated the Laboratory — most notably her focus on establishing psychological safety as a foundation for further DEI improvements and programmatic innovations. She also served on numerous leadership search committees at multiple levels of the Laboratory, co-chaired the Distinguished Fellowship Review Committee for recruiting outstanding early-career scientists and engineers to Argonne, and served on the Organizing Committee for Argonne’s Science Careers in Search of Women conference for high school students. She is a member of Argonne’s Learning Advisory Council.

Dr. Carrera earned her Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry from the University of Chicago and her Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Carroll College. She successfully completed the Booth School of Business’ Strategic Laboratory Leadership Program and is a Prosci® Certified Change Practitioner. She is an alumnus of the Department of Energy’s Oppenheimer Science & Energy Leadership Program.