Andrea Watson — Associate Laboratory Director, Innovation, Partnering, and Outreach

Watson is known for fostering collaboration, teamwork, and strategic approaches to expanding NREL's impact. As the associate laboratory director for NREL's Innovation, Partnering, and Outreach directorate, she oversees all NREL licensing, sponsored research agreements, entrepreneurship programming, strategic partnerships, and innovation management functions.

Previously, Watson managed NREL's Strategic Partnerships Office, leading the team to secure a record-breaking $170 million in new partnership agreements in Fiscal Year 2024. She also played a crucial role in developing NREL's first laboratory agenda and implementing strategic planning initiatives during her 2-year rotating assignment as laboratory program manager for strategy.

Watson started her NREL career in 2009 as a junior researcher focusing on analysis and planning that supported jurisdictions and companies achieving their energy goals. In 2015, she was promoted to group manager of the Integrated Decision Support group, where she led a team focused on applied energy projects and programs that required strategy development, analytics, and technical decision-making. Watson quickly developed a talent for nurturing external partnerships as she led and grew the lab's portfolio of collaborative work with the United States Agency for International Development—representing more than $8 million of projects annually and spanning a diverse range of NREL's research and analysis capabilities.

Her expertise spans strategic planning, partnership development, innovation, change strategies, and decision-making support in energy projects, focusing on affordable and resilient solutions, international development strategies, and renewable energy applications in the mining industry. This latter focus led to her receiving a Fulbright Scholarship in 2014 to study renewable energy in Chile's mining sector.

Watson holds a bachelor's degree in integrative biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master's degree in engineering management from the University of Colorado Boulder.