Michael R. Anastasio became laboratory director of Los Alamos National Laboratory in June 2006. Prior to that, he served as director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, 2002-06.

Anastasio began his laboratory career focused on the design, evaluation, and understanding of nuclear systems. His career at Lawrence Livermore began in 1980 as a physicist in B-Division, one of the two nuclear weapons design physics divisions. He later was named leader of the division before serving as associate director for Defense and Nuclear Technologies, responsible for all activities in the laboratory's nuclear weapons program. In that capacity, he was instrumental in the development and execution of the national Stockpile Stewardship Program.

Anastasio served as deputy director for Strategic Operations with the portfolio of the responsibility for all laboratory operations and national security programs. He also interacted with the Department of Energy on Contract 48 issues, and developed policies and programs to support the Laboratory's mission while achieving excellence in business practices and compliance with regulatory and contractual requirements. He had management responsibility for all operational issues at Lawrence Livermore, and served as the chair of the Council for National Security and chair of the Council for Strategic Operations. He served in Washington as a scientific adviser at the Department of Energy, providing advice to senior members of the department on a variety of Stockpile Stewardship Program issues.

He is the recipient of the 1990 DOE Weapons Recognition of Excellence Award for technical leadership in nuclear design. The award acknowledged Anastasio's outstanding theoretical and experimental contributions to understanding boost physics. He is also a member of Sigma Pi Sigma, the national physics honor society.

Anastasio received a bachelor's degree in physics, with honors, from The Johns Hopkins University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.