Lauren Boyd leads the Geothermal Technologies Office’s efforts to improve performance, reduce costs, and accelerate deployment of all geothermal technologies. In this role, Lauren is responsible for a budget of more than $115 million for geothermal research, development, and demonstration and champions the Office’s partnerships with industry, academia, the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) national laboratories, and others to increase geothermal deployment and advance geothermal as an economically competitive and widely available part of the U.S. energy supply. Lauren also manages DOE's international portfolio on geothermal and represents the United States on several international steering committees.
Prior to becoming director, Lauren served as GTO’s senior advisor, providing technical expertise and input on matters across the Office’s portfolio. She spent over a decade leading GTO’s enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) program, where she was responsible for all of GTO’s EGS-related activities and demonstration projects, and where her focus was on innovation, both in technology development and government execution. Lauren was instrumental in spearheading and launching DOE’s flagship EGS research site, the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy, or FORGE, EGS Collab, and DOE’s Enhanced Geothermal Shot™.
Lauren started her DOE career in 2009 as a Presidential Management Fellow, leveraging her geology background to resolve geothermal challenges. She has remained with GTO throughout because of “the interminable energy of my colleagues...and the rocks”.