Michael Stewart Witherell

Michael Stewart Witherell (born 22 September 1949) is an American particle physicist and laboratory director. He was the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from March, 2016 to June, 2026. Witherell previously served as Director of Fermilab, and was a professor and vice chancellor for research at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Early life and education He was born 22 September 1949 in Toledo, Ohio. He received the 1990 Panofsky Prize from the American Physical Society for this research. In 1998 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Witherell served as the Director of the Fermilab from 1999 to 2005. In 2005 he returned to UC Santa Barbara as the Vice Chancellor for Research, serving in that role until 2016. In 2017 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Service Witherell chaired the Fermilab Program Advisory Committee from 1987 to 1989 and the SLAC Scientific Policy Committee from 1994 to 1996, and the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel of the United States Department of Energy from 1997 to 1999.

Personal life His wife Elizabeth Witherell, a literary historian and scholarly editor, is editor-in-chief of The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau project at UC Santa Barbara.

Awards and honors 1986: elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society 1988: Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 1988–1989 1990: awarded the Panofsky Prize 1998: elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences 2004: received the Gold Award of the US Secretary of Energy 2017: elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences