The University of Michigan has created a new office to support its partnerships with U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories, with Monica Dus, associate professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, to be the office’s director.
The Office of National Laboratories was established by the Office of the Vice President for Research to strengthen U-M partnerships with national laboratories and advance research opportunities by leading strategic planning and collaboration efforts across the university.
Its creation follows the recent announcement of a $1.25 billion initiative between the university and Los Alamos National Laboratory to establish a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to high-performance computing and AI research.
U-M also maintains strong collaborative research agreements with several other U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories, including Idaho National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory and Fermilab in Illinois, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state.
“Dr. Dus’ impressive experience in leading innovative and collaborative efforts across industry, government and academia will be invaluable to our continuing strategic research efforts in partnerships with our nation’s national laboratories,” said Arthur Lupia, interim vice president for research and innovation.
“Establishing the Office of National Laboratories is just one step of many the University of Michigan is taking to further our mission to serve our nation and the world through ground-breaking research.”
Dus currently leads the Laboratory of Molecular Nutrition in LSA’s Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. Her work explores the connections between nutrients and basic biological processes. She also is an affiliate of the Michigan Neuroscience Institute and Michigan Nutrition Obesity Research Center at Michigan Medicine and the Science, Technology, and Public Policy program at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
“The University of Michigan’s research environment has been an amazing place to grow and flourish,” Dus said. “I am honored to lead this office and excited to work alongside our exceptional faculty to meet the science and technology challenges of our time and strengthen our nation.”
Dus holds a Ph.D. in biology from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory School of Biological Sciences in New York where she studied RNA-based gene regulation. Before joining U-M in 2015, she studied neurobiology and nutrient-sensing mechanisms as a postdoctoral fellow at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine at New York University.
In 2024, she was named to the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Vision for American Science & Technology task force, where she convenes with leaders across industry and academia to write policy recommendations that strengthen the U.S. science and technology enterprise.
As a 2023-24 White House Fellow, she was special assistant for science and education to the 78th secretary of the Navy, and assisted in creating the Michigan Maritime Manufacturing Initiative, a $50 million cross-sector effort to support the workforce education needed to maintain the nation’s submarine and maritime industries.
Dus also was named a Guggenheim Fellow in biology in 2023 and is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s New Voices 2024-26 cohort.
