Paul M. Dabbar was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce on June 25, 2025.   

Deputy Secretary Dabbar is the Department’s chief operations officer and day-to-day manager of a budget of $11.4 billion, 12 operating units, and 47,000 employees. He is the principal deputy to the Secretary of Commerce and a member of the President’s Management Council. 

Prior to his confirmation as Deputy Secretary, Mr. Dabbar served as President and CEO of Bohr Quantum Technology, developing and deploying technologies for the emerging quantum internet. 

The Honorable Paul M. Dabbar served as the U.S. Department of Energy’s fourth Under Secretary for Science. He served as the Department’s principal advisor on fundamental energy research, energy technologies, and science, driving this mission through programs including nuclear and high energy particle physics, basic energy, advanced computing, fusion, and biological and environmental research, and direct management over a majority of the Department’s National Labs and their world-leading user facilities. In addition, Mr. Dabbar managed the environmental and legacy management missions of the Department, addressing the U.S. legacy of nuclear weapons production and government-sponsored nuclear energy research. In addition, Mr. Dabbar was the lead for technology commercialization activities for the Department and its 17 national labs. 

His leadership of advanced computing and artificial intelligence led to commissioning of four global #1 computers, deploying GPU chips for the first time in high performance computers. He also led the execution of the majority of the National Quantum Initiative. During his tenure, researchers supported by the Department won several Nobel Prizes, including for the lithium-ion battery, and gene editing – CRISPR Cas9. And the U.S. became a net-energy exporter for the first time since 1950. 

Mr. Dabbar is one of the few people who has traveled to both the North and South Poles (90 degrees North/90 degrees south).  He traveled to the North Pole by submarine to conduct military missions and environmental research while in the Navy, and to the South Pole in support of high energy physics astronomy missions at South Pole Station.  

Prior to his confirmation as Under Secretary for Science, Mr. Dabbar worked in operations, finance, and strategy roles in the energy sector. As a Managing Director at J.P. Morgan, leading various energy business areas, he has over $400 billion in investment experience across all energy sectors. In addition, he had a senior leadership role for the company’s commodity trading business, including power, oil, gas, and critical minerals. 

Before joining J.P. Morgan, Mr. Dabbar served as a nuclear submarine officer in Mare Island, California, and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He also served on the Department of Energy Environmental Management Advisory Board. He has been a lecturer at the U.S. Naval Academy, and conducted research at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.  

Mr. Dabbar received a B.S. degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and a master's degree from Columbia University. Mr. Dabbar and his wife, Andrea, are the parents of two children.