Profile

Heather Jackson serves as Division Director of Enabling Science and Partnerships within the Fusion Energy Sciences program in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. She leads the development of research portfolios, funding opportunities, and competitive solicitations, and works across DOE programs to align academic institutions, private industry, and national laboratories in advancing fusion energy research. Previously, she served as a Technology-to-Market Advisor at the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, where she supported the commercialization of fusion, advanced nuclear, and other clean energy technologies. Her career spans startup leadership and the electric power industry, including work in decarbonization strategy, nuclear operations, innovation, health physics, and radiological safety, as well as research in plasma diagnostics and radiological response. Jackson studied physics, chemistry, and mathematics at Mercer University, nuclear engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, earned a senior reactor operator certification from Palo Verde Generating Station, and received an MBA focused on innovation and entrepreneurship from the University of Arizona.