The Honorable Paul M. Dabbar is a Non-Resident Fellow and former Distinguished Visiting Fellow at CGEP. He is also Co-founder and former CEO of Bohr Quantum Technology, developing and deploying technologies for the emerging quantum internet. He is also on the board of Dominion Energy.
Prior to that in 2017, the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Mr. Dabbar to serve as the Department of Energy’s fourth Under Secretary for Science, where he served from 2017-2021. He managed several areas of the Department, as well as serving as the Department’s principal advisor on fundamental energy research, energy technologies, science, and commercialization of technologies. He managed over 60,000 people with a budget of $15 billion p.a. at over 100 sites, including managing the majority of the U.S. National Laboratories.
Areas of research he managed included basic energy sciences, nuclear and high energy physics, advanced computing, fusion, and biological & environmental research. He also led the largest environmental remediation program in the U.S., addressing the operations of nuclear weapons and commercial power production, completing several multi-billion dollar construction projects. He also led various new efforts to commercialize innovations arising from the National Labs. He co-led several new energy innovation efforts, including the Energy Storage Grand Challenge, as well as the passage and implementation of the National Quantum Initiative Act.
Mr. Dabbar was awarded in 2021 the Secretary of Energy’s senior DOE award, the James R. Schlesinger Medal, for leadership on developing energy technologies, discovery science, environmental management, and the National Quantum Initiative.
Mr. Dabbar is one of the few people who have traveled to both the geographic North and South Poles (90°N/90°S). He traveled to the North Pole by submarine to conduct environmental research while in the Navy, and to the South Pole in support of high energy physics astronomy and environmental missions of DOE at South Pole Station.
Prior to confirmation as Under Secretary, Mr. Dabbar worked in operations, finance, and strategy roles in the energy sector. As a Managing Director at J.P. Morgan, he had over $400 billion in transaction experience across all energy sectors. In addition, he had a senior leadership role for the company’s commodity trading business, including energy. Before joining J.P. Morgan, Mr. Dabbar served as a nuclear submarine officer. He has been a lecturer at the U.S. Naval Academy, and conducted research at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Mr. Dabbar is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Mr. Dabbar has a bachelors from the U.S. Naval Academy, is a graduate of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear power and nuclear engineer programs, and a masters from Columbia University.
