Brookhaven National Laboratory names John Hill director

John Hill had no idea when he left his home in southern England that he would someday run Brookhaven National Laboratory — what he called "the best place in the world for studying science.”

Forty years after arriving in the United States, Hill last week was named the Upton lab's director after eight months as its interim leader following the resignation of his predecessor, JoAnne Hewett.

Hill, 60, of Stony Brook, has been on the lab's payroll since 1992. But he fell in love with the place even earlier when he studied at the facility while pursuing doctoral studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“When I first came, I wasn’t thinking lab director. I was thinking of doing science. This is the best place in the world for studying science,” he said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “I like the challenge, the variety ... I like bringing people together to work on one thing.”

At the lab, Hill leads about 3,000 scientists, engineers and technicians studying the building blocks of the universe and developing futuristic information science technologies, including artificial intelligence.

Electron-ion collider

He assumes control over the lab's latest project — construction of a $3 billion electron-ion collider, a high-tech atom-smasher capable of dissecting the subatomic materials that form the basis of everything in the universe.

The collider replaces the quarter-century-old Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider, which was retired earlier this year. Hill said the goal is to complete construction and start up the new collider by 2036. 

In his new role, Hill also serves as president of the lab's operator, Brookhaven Science Associates, a collaboration of Stony Brook University and Battelle, a Columbus, Ohio tech firm.

In a statement, Brookhaven Science Associates chair Juan Alvarez said Hill "brings the leadership and vision needed to advance the lab's future. ... Under John's leadership, we are confident Brookhaven will continue to expand its science-ready infrastructure and strategic public-private partnerships in service to the nation."

In addition to advanced science, the lab has worked in recent years to shore up its role in the Long Island business community, launching an economic incubator called Discovery Park to link scientists with local entrepreneurs. Construction began in 2022 and is ongoing, Hill said.

Stacey I. Sikes, acting president of the Long Island Association, the region's leading business group, said the lab is “an economic engine for Long Island" — so much so that the lab is a longtime member of the group. Hill sits on the association's board, she added.

"John Hill’s vast experience at the lab in leadership positions ... will serve this important asset and our region well so the lab can continue to amplify its impact with groundbreaking research and commercialization,” Sikes said in a statement.

Soccer fan revels in teamwork

A soccer fan who has tickets for a World Cup match in Boston this summer, Hill said he has enjoyed the teamwork involved in big projects like the electron-ion collider. Before starting his management career at the lab in 1999, he was involved in research into X-ray scattering — the process by which X-ray photons are deflected, which degrades the quality of medical imaging.

“It takes all the people here working together to work on something big,” he said.

He hopes to expand the lab's roles in the development of advanced computer chips and quantum computing. That will certainly, and perhaps inevitably, involve AI, he said, despite concerns raised by critics that AI could displace human workers.

"As a scientist, we have to make sure it’s doing science correctly,” Hill said. “If we don’t do that as a lab, we’ll lose the competition with other labs. We have to be at the forefront of science.

“We think it will make scientists more productive, and that’s the way we look at it.”