Meet Zhi Liao, NIF&PS Workforce Manager
February 2, 2023
Zhi Liao, the new NIF & Photon Science (NIF&PS) workforce manager, works with NIF&PS Summer Scholar Program students in 2010. Liao helped to develop and expand the summer internship program, which began in the mid-2000s. Credit: Rose Hansen Zhi Liao’s path from laser scientist to his new role as workforce manager for the NIF & Photon Science (NIF&PS) Directorate has come full circle—and is rooted in his early days at LLNL.
When he was a student at the University of Rochester in New York, Liao spent three summers as a Lab intern before being hired as a full-time laser scientist in 2001. His intern experiences left such a strong impression that he has since spent many volunteer hours advising and guiding colleagues and students.
NIF&PS Workforce Manager Zhi Liao. Credit: Jason Laurea “In hindsight, it felt like everything was pushing in that direction (to become a workforce manager),” Liao says. “Obviously, the fact that I could do this for so long is because I love both the technical and outreach work. They have different rewards, different gratifications.
“Otherwise, if it didn’t make me feel happy doing it and if it didn’t make me feel like I was making a difference, I would just stop,” he says. “I did it because I want to do it and I saw the impact.”
In his new role, Liao is responsible for the strategy, development, and implementation of technical guidelines and procedures necessary to achieve workforce goals. He will also partner with division leaders to develop, implement, and update onboarding, career development, and mentorship programs for employees.
Becoming a workforce manager was the farthest thing from Liao’s mind when he was hired as a laser scientist from the University of Rochester, where he received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in optical engineering, and worked as a student of Govind Agrawal, a distinguished professor of physics and optics, on nonlinear fiber optics.
His field of expertise is in nonlinear optics, adaptive optics, and laser-induced optics damage. He has contributed to such Lab laser projects as the Fiber-based Sodium Guide Star Laser, the Mercury Laser, the MEC-U (Matter in Extreme Conditions Upgrade) for the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and NIF, the world’s largest and most energetic laser.
Liao has worked on developing models for predicting optics lifetimes for NIF. He also co-led an integrated team that commissioned a new NIF optic, the fused silica debris shield, that played a key role in the recent laser energy increases that enabled NIF’s historic fusion ignition experiment on Dec. 5.
Zhi Liao explains a NIF video to John Holdren, President Barack Obama’s Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, in 2010 during the USA Science & Engineering Festival at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Credit: Rick Weiss/The White House At the same time, Liao became known at NIF&PS for his commitment to helping employees and students. Since the mid-2000s, he has worked to establish and expand the NIF&PS Summer Scholar Program and has created the NIF Laser Roadshow. His other workforce development initiatives have included piloting the NIF&PS Rotational Experience, an accelerated, immersive program aimed at providing staff with an understanding of NIF&PS missions, goals, and capabilities. He has also worked to develop and increase educational resources such as summer optics classes and an online master’s degree program for staff development at the University of Rochester.
He recently led a cross-organizational team that won a multi-year grant to establish a consortium with three Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to develop a diverse workforce in photonic and material science. Liao, along with other Lab staff, has traveled to several HBCUs, promoting student opportunities and internships at LLNL.
Over time, and especially in the past three or four years, Liao estimates he spent 30 to 50 percent of his work on recruiting and outreach.
“For years, Zhi has shown great passion leading workforce initiatives in addition to his technical roles,” NIF&PS Principal Associate Director Jeff Wisoff says. “This was an appropriate time to incorporate those efforts into a position fully focused on workforce issues to support (LLNL) Director Kim Budil’s new initiatives in this area as well as programs specific to NIF&PS.”
Adds Lydia Camara, NIF&PS deputy principal associate director for Operations: “We identified a need to have a workforce manager in NIF&PS to ensure we have a consistent and robust approach for our workforce activities. Zhi was the most qualified candidate because of his university collaborations and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) work in the directorate.”
Zhi Liao, kneeling at center, brings a NIF&PS Summer Scholar Program group to tour NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View in 2014. Credit: Zhi Liao Now, instead of projects involving lasers, Liao’s calendar is filled with outreach and recruiting efforts like college visits around the country, where he is on a new mission—promoting NIF and LLNL.
“It was very clear that this role can have a lot bigger impact than the technical role,” he says.
He is aware of the challenges the Lab faces in a more competitive job environment, especially from Silicon Valley tech firms. But he’s excited about the feedback he has already received from NIF&PS staff, many of whom want to help with recruiting and hiring.
“There’s no better way to recruit than having somebody who went to your school or comes from your town telling you that it’s a great place to work,” he says. “I think everybody needs to help out in order to solve this labor crunch that we have.
“There’s a lot of work, but it’s exciting,” Liao says of his new role. “I like challenges and I would like to think that I can make a difference. I enjoy talking about NIF and giving my point of view of why it’s a great place to work.”
—Jon Kawamoto
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