Board Leadership - Non-Legislative Trustees

Lura J. Powell, Ph.D

LSDF Board Chair

Lura J. Powell, Ph.D. has served as chair of the Board of Trustees of the Washington State Life Sciences Discovery Fund since 2006. In 2011, she was chair of the Washington State Redistricting Commission, which is formed once every ten years to redraw the state’s legislative and congressional district boundaries based on Census results.Dr. Powell is the former Director of the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, operated by Battelle and a Senior Vice President of Battelle. Prior to her DOE service, she was Director of the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Department of Commerce, where she was responsible for selection and management of high risk technology investment portfolio exceeding $2 billion across the full range of technology sectors. Dr. Powell  also chaired the Biotechnology Research Committee of the National Science and Technology Council, which coordinated biotechnology research across the federal government. Following her government service, was President and CEO of Advanced Imaging Technologies, Inc.  Dr. Powell is a member of the Board of Directors of the Washington Technology Alliance and served for five years on the Board of Directors of Avista Corporation, an investor-owned utility. She received a B.S. in Chemistry and Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Maryland and is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.