Dr. Joseph L. Corriveau, SES

Director, Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center

Published May 19, 2016
Updated: March 15, 2019

Since May 2017, Dr. Joseph L. Corriveau has served as the Director of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in Hanover, New Hampshire, one of seven laboratories that comprise the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC). The mission of CRREL is to advance and apply science and research engineering approaches to solve interdisciplinary and strategically-important challenges related to the Earth’s cold regions. CRREL conducts research across a range of fundamental and applied sciences and engineering in polar regions and in temperate and mountain regions. The CRREL Hanover campus includes the Remote Sensing / Geospatial Information Systems Center of Expertise of the Corps of Engineers.

Dr. Corriveau began his career with the Army in 1990 as a senior analyst for chemical and biological matters at the U.S. Army National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) located in Charlottesville, Virginia. After a decade with NGIC, he accepted a position as the Senior Advisor for Science & Technology in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs). Dr. Corriveau served in the Pentagon for three years and then returned to the Army in 2003 as the Deputy Director for Research & Technology at the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) located in Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. He entered the Senior Executive Service in 2007 and served as the ECBC Director from 2014 to 2017. As member of the Senior Executive Service, he has been called upon by the National Security Council, Pentagon leadership, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (the implementing body of the Chemical Weapons Convention). He received the Presidential Rank Award in 2017.

Dr. Corriveau graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Saint Anselm College, located in his hometown of Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1981. He also received a Master’s degree in Plant Science from the University of Delaware in 1983 as well as a Ph.D. in Biology from the Division of Biology and Medicine at Brown University in 1989.