Michelle Thompson

Dr. Michelle Thompson is a Federal Project Director at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), where she is responsible for oversight of Livermore Field Office (LFO).

LFO manages the nuclear weapons stockpile and advances naval nuclear propulsion while working to modernize the NNSA infrastructure.

Dr. Thompson manages and oversees construction projects for including control and provides project planning and execution including cost estimating for capital construction projects valued over $10M for all of NNSA. 

Prior Information:

Michelle is a postdoctoral fellow supporting the Department of Energy (DOE) in the Office of Energy Policy Systems Analysis (EPSA).  She works on water-energy nexus projects, including the U.S.-Israel Integrated Energy and Desalination Design Challenge and the Water Resource Recovery Test-bed Network with NSF, EPA, and WERF.

She began her studies in marine biology from UCLA, but soon discovered her passion for environmental policy, which eventually led her to a Master in Public Administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) Environmental Science & Policy program. While interning in the climate change division at the United Nations she developed an interest in energy efficiency and water policy.

Her studies culminated in a D. Env (Doctor of Environment) in environmental science & engineering from UCLA. She decided to forego a traditional PhD program and pursue a policy-based professional doctoral program. Her dissertation, “An integrated approach to scale up the market penetration of low carbon energy technologies in developing countries and water scarce regions,” evaluates the integration of desalination technology with renewables in Asia and the Middle East. For her data points Thompson designed an off-grid water purification system with the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) and National University of Singapore. Over the past 9 years she have collaborated on water-energy  projects with scientists, government agencies, and stakeholders in Korea, China, Taiwan, Sicily, Singapore, Dubai, Fiji, Tahiti, Mexico, and Ghana.