Dr. Will Rees – Award Winning Scientist, Engineer, Leader in National Security

William S. Rees, Jr., the Managing Director of efkairia, L. L. C. a strategic consulting
small business, previously served as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for
Laboratories and Basic Sciences, DUSD (LABS). He has over 30 years of experience in academia, government service, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, and the private sector, most recently as the Principal Associate Director for Global Security at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Rees is widely recognized internationally as a scientist, engineer, and a leader in national security, basic research, and national laboratory policy. For his contributions and service, he has received numerous national and international awards.

Dr. Rees was the DUSD (LABS), responsible for providing scientific leadership,
management oversight, policy guidance, and coordination of the more than $1.8 billion
annual Basic Research programs of the Military Services and Defense Agencies. In this
capacity, Dr. Rees had cognizance over the entire Defense Basic Research portfolio. In
addition, he was responsible for DoD Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics (STEM) education and workforce issues, grants policy, and international
S&T programs. Dr. Rees was responsible for Defense Laboratories policy, covering
more than 47,000 scientists and engineers. Under his leadership the National Defense
Education Program underwent both significant and sustained growth.

Coming to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) from key leadership positions that
included the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and
the Georgia Institute of Technology, his leadership credentials are broad and deep in
scientific research, national security, and nuclear matters. At LANL he had responsibility
for national security work for DoD, DHS, and the Intelligence Community. He served as
an Independent Member of the Board of Directors of Vantage Health, Inc. (VNTH:OTCBB) from 2013 – 2014. In addition to being Chair of the Assured Enterprises, Inc. Board of Advisors, he also served as an Independent Member of the Board of Directors from 2014 – 2015. He has earned BS (Texas Tech University) and PhD (UCLA) degrees in Chemistry and is a Fellow of several national and international professional societies. He held a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT and was a Humboldt Research Fellow at Technische Universität, Berlin. He frequently chaired and served on national and international scientific committees, panels, commissions, and task forces. He has been a professional journal editor and he served on six technical journals’ international advisory boards – including as a founding board member for Advanced Materials, the profession’s most cited journal.

Dr. Rees holds seven patents, has over 120 publications in archival journals, has edited
one book, and has delivered over 300 invited lectures at international meetings,
universities, and other locations. He has been interviewed on live TV and radio on
diverse topics including energy, national security, national laboratories, basic research,
and higher education. In more than a decade as a Full Professor of Chemistry and
Biochemistry and Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of
Technology, he supervised 23 undergraduate research students, 19 graduate research
students, and 20 postdoctoral fellows.

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