Lucas Beagle, Ph.D. | Div. 30 Director | Employee Spotlight

Lucas Beagle, Ph.D.

Division Director

Biological & Nanoscale Technologies

UES is thrilled to welcome Lucas Beagle, PhD, as the new Division Director of the Biological and Nanoscale Technologies Division. Lucas formerly held the position of Program Manager/Lead Scientist in this division. We are excited to continue our growth and relationship with such an accomplished scientist. Please send Lucas your hearty congratulations as we look forward to the research and leadership Lucas will inspire at UES, Inc. for the years to come.

Tell us a little bit about your Division?

We are a 'younger' Division of UES, founded in 2010. But we're dynamic, and have extended into newer research areas and have spun out two other Divisions. In Biological & Nanoscale Technologies, our core capabilities are soft material research, development, and technology transition spanning across fields including organic synthesis, synthetic biology, microbial contaminations, functional additive manufacture, flexible hybrid electronics, and machine learning/optimization.

Now that you've been promoted to Division Director, what are your goals?

My goal is to continue doing things that we do well, such as being a welcoming, encouraging workplace, while growing in the development of our people in areas such as professional development, career growth, and finding interesting opportunities for our people to expand their skill-sets. I want to expand what our Division 30 corporate research team can offer to our customer and our employees whether that is using our corporate team to improve or develop a process or a prototype or being a particular technology towards commercialization. We have a lot of really great resources at UES that I also am just becoming aware of and some that are just maturing that can really add value to the services we offer our customer and to our employees.

What achievements are you most proud of?

I am most proud of where I am now, I have been able to experience a lot since I left academics to join UES 2.5 years ago. I think working to become the division director has been a goal of mine and it has allowed me to achieve this goal while building great relationships with the people I have worked with. I also enjoy the work-life balance that I have been able to have since Joining UES. While here I have gotten to write and present on some really exciting research (much of which was really new and exciting to me), this has also allowed me to build or expand connections outside of AFRL and UES, leading to recently being named a co-organizer of a Polyermic Science and Materials Engineering (PMSE) symposium at the American Chemical Society (ACS) Spring 2023 meeting entitled “Functional Polymer and 2D Materials Interfaces for Optoelectronics”.

What is the best advice you've ever heard?

Enjoy what you do. I know it sounds cliché, but if you do what your passion is, your outlook is different. When I joined UES 2.5 years ago, I felt like I got to do what I wanted to do. I felt when I came to work it wasn’t a job, it was just part of who and what I did, I enjoyed it, it was fun! I spent several years in academics, and I really enjoyed guiding students, I really lost my passion for doing science. I attempted to regain that lost passion by changing universities a couple of times, but it wasn’t until I got involved with Nick Glavin (AFRL) and Chris Muratore (UD) that I regained my passion for doing science. It was exciting and freeing and I would encourage people to seek out what they are passionate about and align their goals with what they enjoy doing.

Learn more about our work in this area at Biological and Nanoscale Technologies