2022 National Science Board (NSB) Meeting Day 1

2022 National Science Board (NSB) Meeting Day 1

Show Video

≫ Dan, we can't hear you. ≫ Yep, not hearing a thing. ≫ Can you hear anything on Zoom? ≫ I didn't hear anything.

≫ I can hear other Zoom folks. Dan was on mute, but he's showing not on mute. You want to say something? ≫ Dan Reed: Yes, can you hear me now? Great. This technology thing may have some future. Let me start again for the benefit of everybody. So, welcome, everyone, board member, staff, and those visiting us to the 480th meeting of the National Science Board here on August 3rd, 2022. This is a

hybrid meeting. I can't emphasize enough for those of us who are here how great it is to actually see people in person after two years, it's really been delightful to have the hallway conversations that go with active participation in person. So, you know, obviously we welcome hybrid participation.

Those of you who are here in person, just encourage you to login to Zoom so you can see if your colleagues want to speak or participate but also keep your mic muted so we don't get a feedback loop . So, one of the things that I wanted to do very briefly before we jump into the meeting is just say a few words. This is my first meeting as chair, and Vic and I as chair and Vice Chair spent a bunch of the summer talking to members of the board, talking to staffers on the Hill , members of Congress, working with Panch and the NSF staff and a lot has happened over the summer. The CHIPS and science act was passed.

I want to give a huge shout-out to Panch for incredible service behind the scenes for making that happen. Dario played a huge role as well. So, thanks to him also. As we just talked about before the meeting began, this is an important moment . Authorizations have happened to increase NSF's budget before. What we hope to do is turn the poetry of authorization into the prose of appropriation . And so, as we think about those issues , and how that translates into executing Vision 2030, we think about the Missing Millions and challenges around broadening and expanding the base of talent, STEM talent in the U.S. , how we think about the broad-based geography of innovation, and how the new technology directorate , TIP, impact on that. There are some important issues

before us . I also want to say that one of the things that Panch and I have been talking about is how we increased the bandwidth of communication between the board and NSF in terms of simplifying and streamlining some processes. So, one of the things I'm trying to model the behavior, is I am engaged in more off-the-cuff, only semi scripted remarks, and I hope that that will be an indicator of what we really want to have, is robust and thoughtful dialogue between the board and NSF about these important issues. There's an old quote attributed to the numerical analyst Richard Hammond about computing. He said the purpose of computing is the insight not numbers.

So the purpose of meeting is actual engagement in exchange of ideas. So, that, I think, means we have to be free to say to each other. Sometimes we don't any the answer to this. That's okay.

That's what question and answer interaction is about . So, with that sort of prelude. Welcome to the meeting and let me turn the floor over to our Director, to offer his remarks . ≫ Dr.

Panchanathan: Thank you, Mr. Chair, welcome to be here. Welcome to all of you. Some of you did not come last time physically to NSF . I'm glad some of you came physically to NSF . Welcome to all of you, good to have all of you here.

This is the second hybrid NSB feeding we're learning a lot and it will be a great effort, too. One of things to do is share amazing things that happened by NSF, through NSF by the help of all of you since the last meeting that's what I try to do since the last meeting. Just to put this into perspective, when I was a board member I want to hear exciting things what is going on. When talking about

modeling that, I thought we should use it first. And should use it for some updates. Having said that, let me see if I can make this work . As the share said, something to celebrate the kips and science fair. I want to thank the board, those who have done heavy lifting. The chair reminded this is just the beginning, we have a lot more work to do and we will work together to see how we can get that done.

The new legislation essentially authorizes $ 81 million over five years for NSF . And authorizeization, more than doubling of the current budget and codifies the TIP directorate and authorizes new activities to strengthen at need and skill so, I also want technology because I would be remiss if I didn't do that in NSF. Working tirelessly over the last few months and years getting us to this point. I want to express my good toot to colleagues there. As I always do I tend to anchor

this, I want to make this point about the passage that is bipartisan on both the Senate side and the House side which is an excellent thing. I'm grateful for the congressional folks, representative , Senators, Congressman and women as well as administration for tremendous work to get us to this point. Thank you to everyone and the Biden Harris administration . There's three major priorities of NSF.

I always anchor with there. I want the road map presented . One this strengthening establishment of NSF. You heard me say this several times. Inspiring Missing Millions and activating technology and innovation. This is aligned

with the mission of the Board . NSF is looking to actively energize on all these tree fronts. What I'll be talking about and three leaders will talk about the cool science for five minutes each is aligned with the three major priorities and you will be able to see it through that lens, of course yet not just limited to that but you'll see it through that lens so it is much easier to under and follow. Okay. Let me see if I can move to the next slide. The reason I became so interested in math as a child, I moved around a lot and actually lived in several different countries and I realized from a really early age math was universal. It was the same in every country and seemed like a deeper universal truth too me as a young child. I am Lia, an NSF astronomy and at the institute of advanced study for the last seven years I've been a member of the event horizon telescope collaboration.

The NSF made it possible for our collaboration to image the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy. I came interested in the black holes in high school. And I learned black holes dilate time that sealed the deal and made me convinced athat I wanted to spend the rest of my life studying these fascinating ones. When I was in graduate school studying my Ph.D. I was in a difficult position, I wasn't able to find an adviser that had enough grant funding to support me throughout my Ph.D. studies, I was strongly consider leaving the field and I applied for NSF's graduate research fellowship program.

When I was awarded that fellowship it was really life changing for me and allowed me to finish my Ph.D. stay in academia, but also study very specifically important science questions that I am most excited about. And so -- the reason I became so interested in math as a child , was that I moved around a lot and actually lived in several different countries and I realized from a really early age that math was universal. It was the same in

every country. It seemed like a more deeper universal truth to me even as a young child. I'm Lia Davis, an NSF astronomy and astrophysics post doctoral fellow for the institute -- for the past seven years I've been a member of -- the NSF made it possible for our collaboration -- ≫ Dr. Panchanathan: We will make sure you have the video also.

In the interest of time, what we want to say we're proud of this amazing moment of this black hole in our Galaxy. We had a wonderful press event. To see and I came with every one of the investigator s as they were preparing for the moment and congratulate them. It was me meeting them, I

was thrilled coming down and was excited to come down. What an amazing people. To meet Lia as part of the team was truly a remarkable moment. This is something I think I would like to see us do more of is organizing not only the cool science but cool scientists who do amazing work.

Talking about that that's the next segue of the things I want to celebrate. Clearly we make thousands of awards but what I would like to celebrate is focus areas. This is the TRIPODS program, trans disciplinary research in principles of data science. This program brings together statistic, mathematics and computer science communities to develop research and training activities that focus on code, ail go rhythm mathematical to the advancement of data science. And very, very proud. Look at the group there. Again, it's an exciting thing to see the amazing researchers.

They announced two new TRIPODS. This things scientists and engineers from different research communities to further study data science through integrated research and training activities. The first award was the institute for imaging co-methods and data science which are on core lead by the University of San Diego , in collaboration with the University of Los Angeles. University of

Pennsylvania and University of Texas Austin. The EnCORE institute plan for outreach and broadening participation by engaging students of diverse backgrounds of all levels from K-12, to postdocs as well as junior fault. The second program is institute for data, economy metrics, algorithms and learning are ideal . Led by the University of Chicago. And the technological institute. University of Chicago. This is in partnership with the learning

theory team at Google. Their center will focus around the foundations of machine learning, high dimensional data national sis and inference in data science and work on striving to broaden participation, amazing conceptions and what they propose and ultimately win will make possible tremendous advances in the area of data science. Like wide talking about the major projects, next in skill we announce the science and technology centers.

As you all may know science and technology center, STCs were initiated in 1987 and we have awarded many, many science and technology centers across the nation, they are aimed at advancing ambitious complex research in the fields ranging from biology, to physics to climate change. The six new STCs launched in the current recent release , are LEAP, learning earth with artificial intelligence and physics. I can go through details in each one of them. In the

interest of time, I'm going to expand the acronym, cold Dex, center for the center for ice exploration. CROPPS, center for integration of climate system , IMOD, center for materials on demand. CCOM, center for currencies, of microbial planet and steps . We all know it's important to access discoveries in development of new sustainable technology , this center is working to control, recover and reuse and manage phosphorous. As one of the science and technology centers. Likewise when we talk about big conceptual

conceptions this is something I was proud of. I was awarded this myself. The NSF research traineeship program . To pursue STEM CAREER Awardses. We announced 22 new awards. Additional $58 million investment including 6 $. 8

million supported by the American rescue plan act that allow the Antarctic program to expand to 48 #4 2 states , District of Columbia and U.S. Virgin Islands. Keeping with the team, how do we make sure the talent is everywhere and how we might inspire that. I'm proud of this program that's made possible. You can see that this -- this plan of all of the places where the program is having an impact . Basically the program is helping to catalyze and advance interdisciplinary research , graduate students and promote investments in graduate education. The next program which is at -- these are all strengthening established NSF priority based examples that I wanted you to get. The next is concept of inspiring Missing Millions and through that window, I don't want to advance because I'm afraid they advance, too.

It doesn't recognize it. Okay. Good. We talked about inspiring Missing Millions across directorates and programs across NSF. In 2017 NSF established improving undergraduate STEM education, Hispanic serving institution.

This program strives to enhance the quality of undergraduate education and STEM and increase recruitment . Retention and graduate rate of students in Hispanic serving institutions. Last Mott month we announced $29 million to support funding opportunity to introduce program network research senters and hubs, what we call HSI net hubs. HSI net works to establish two centers up to five hubs to double up infrastructure to disseminate new knowledge at Hispanic serving institutions. What's the next thing we want to celebrate? This is asking you're familiar with the includes program.

When I was on the Board myself, the includes program was part of the top ten big ideas of NSF and it is thriving , prospering, making unbelievable things possible all across our country. NSF includes net works that help spread best practices and proven approaches for bringing diverse talent into STEM fields. As part of the program includes newly established coordination hubs network that work collaboratively to promote success and elevate expertise through sharing best practices not only that includes itself is a network but talk about hubs making possible even more exchange of activities between various includes projects. And I'm happy to announce today, that in honor of chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, NSF includes has recently been renamed to the NSF Eddie Bernice Johnson includes initiative.

We should all celebrate this. [ Applause ] for the amazing work that chairwoman Johnson has done to advance STEM and has been a passionate advocate of NSF. I'm proud to have this program named in honor of her amazing thrashingss.

The next program, inspiring Missing Millions, which you will be excited about because this false in the team of partnership . We said we want more partnerships, scaled through partnership, impact being increased through partnerships. This is 8 $. 6 million partnerships to increase STEM education, the partnerships are Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, Schmidt futures and Walton family foundation. This is to fund initiatives to

improve education to K-12 students to underserved communities. Next. I always promise you in always of these meetings I will present at least one if not more examples of NSF investments to current impacts. Keeping with that spirit today we will talk about health medical technology and med tech investment example. As you know we're investing with NSF in sustained investments in curiosity based research as elwell as intired research.

In 1999, NSF supported Dr. John Fenn in the research of Lech Tre spray ionization. This is the use of mass spectrum tri for mass biological analysis resulting in the rise of the large scale analysis of proteins. In turn this enabled comprehensive profiling of species and processes . Seminal to the species . John Fenn was recognized in 2002 with nebul prize in chemistry . It hold the key of personalized medicine of the future . The other program I had the

first opportunity to look at in person which I visit University of San Diego a couple weeks ago. And meet the researcher with the program . The researches at NSF chemistry began. Funding for the center for aerosol impact on the chemistry of the environment at UCSD . Because of the research, researchers today better under airborne aerosols leading to the vital air important aerosols and develop mitigation and protection against COVID-19. I met Dr. Kim Prater who has been working on this told me she's collaborating with the CDC and folks work on COVID-19 every day to see how aerosol transition mechanisms through the CDC and through the understanding that was gained through the work she did by undering the sea spray.

Likewise in 1993, NSF had three data processing . Johns Hopkins began researching how to under 3D images. As a result of the initial research, Jerry Prince of the Harmonic face matter or HARP, this method is to obtain motion information from the human heart in 3D. This developed -- this ruled in the development of new sometimes that can help radiologists read and decipher radiological images in a more cost and effective basis.

At last I would like to share a fascinating transformational example what is made possible in early investments in robots, planning controls and AI. In 1987, NSF supported Steven grass Burgh in his research of by logically inspired computer architecture. This research assessed hue humans integrated the planning and led to developing robots to use sensory information to avoid or target a specific item. More recently there's been an explosion of work in exoskeletons including those that transfer control between the user and exoskeleton ins I cause of muscle fatigue. Early in research of planning and research in AI and bring computer researches lead to development of development to help people with spinal injuries walk again.

I hope this gives a broad swath of early investments we made several decades ago, but results in unbelievable outcomes that we see happen through those in the form of transfer of technology or in the form of incubation of companies or others. The other exciting thing about technology and innovation, is I'm proud to report we are able to advance the regional innovations. There's a new program as part of the technology and innovation partnership directorate. And advanced research and workforce development to usher transformation of economic growth regionally and nationally.

The NSF engines published nearly 700 outlines spanning all 50 states and four U.S. territories publishing outline data is a new approach for NSF talking about constantly looking at new opportunities, new ways of promoting partnerships . New ways of encouraging people working collaboratively, or regional teams to share NSF ideas . And development and full proposal this fall. NSF head coach this release of data will drive new partnerships, collaborations and stronger mule Tai sector applications between now and application deadlines. I'm happy to report the first step we've taken in the NSF engines program. Partner with the the accelerating technology and innovation team.

One of the things we're proud to say, how do you work collaboratively with other agencies? NSF recently signed an MOU with the Department of Energy's office of energy efficiency and renewal energy . To continue our long-standing partnership for collaboration on scientific and engineering research that helps to bolster national energy policy, this partnership prioritizes the workers and communities at the front lines of the area's most impacted by area transmission and those historically underserved by the energy system. Just to make sure that we have talked about partnership with NOAA, DOE, with NASA, this is an ongoing thing. We are looking at opportunities, working with other agencies to scale and create more impact. All of us are working on this

together. Likewise, each year communities across the nation, you know, face significant damage from hazards , droughts, earth wakes, hurricane, tornados and fires. NSF and U.S. Department of Commerce, national institute of standards and technology, NI ST recently announced a new joint invest pment of $7 million to go toward 20 new research projects to help build community and infrastructure resilience to natural hazards, 12 NSF projects for disaster resilience are funded through 17 awards. Again draw attention to some teams at NSF has been prioritizing and how these projects align with those teams that NSF is prioritizing . It was an honor to attend the NHERI large scale high performance outdoor table a few weeks ago in San Diego. The UC San Diego is part of NHERI program and served $16.

5 million upgrade to allow the table to move in all directions. It was interesting to watch all directions where it moves and build a structure on top of this and test for many different conditions you want to evaluate the construction on. This is Lous for reproduction of earth wake movement and enable researchers to test the heftiest structures in the world. From multi level

buildings, bridge climbs and wind turbines . So, I promise you in every meeting that we have three cool science stories and presentations, so I'm very thrilled to be joined by three amazing leaders of NSF, Dr. Joanne tar now, assistant Director of the directorate for by logical sciences, Dr. Margaret Martonosi, as well as Dr. Kendra Sharp office science and engineering. Over to Joanne tar now. ≫ Joanne tar turn now: Thank you very much.

Panch, in pie long, these are three grand challenges that we look. How genes produce visible features how life evolves and how organisms and their environments interact. Today I'll talk about the last challenge talking about how we funded it and its value and highlight in particular one example of work in this area advancing both science and engagement . There's a multitude of ways which org nicements can interact with one another or their environment and today I focus on how several animals move through their environment. I'm going to do that by highlighting the research being conducted at Georgia Tech University.

As he describes it the lab is bio physicists and engineers focusing on cultivating science, curiosity. SAD is a prolific inventor whose inventions include a 90 cent hearing aid he has several awards including a CAREER Award focused on fast, furious and fantastic beasts and he exams the bio mechanics and physical limitations of the organisms including the movements of the sling shot spider in Peru. He and his team worked to capture on film the way the spiders use their webs to build up potential energy before launching at prey. So, watch at the beginning of this video clip as the spider releases the tension line to spring forward and pulls back to prepare for its next launch . This could lead to new robotics as well as applications for the silk produced by spiders.

While in the field the team acted with the students from science and technology in Peru who loved the video of high speed videos of animals in their yard. Dr. Bhama studied the snap, they found it takes 7 Milly seconds to snap one's finger 20 times faster than the blink of an eye, let me play you a video of the research ≫ A team of researchers at Georgia Tech and Harvey college studied the physics of finger snapping they learned vision plays a intricately role in the process. Why is this important? It could lead to the design of prosthetics that mimic the functionality of the human hand. Also covers promise and creation of bio inspired robot.

And just like that, you learn something new. ≫ Dr. Bhama recently conducted work highlighted in "The New York Times" on the collective movement of California black worms in response to environmental stresses to protect themselves from brought they come together as shape shifting blobs composed of few to hundreds of individuals like swarms of bees or flocks of Starlings they can show collective movement but collective movement involves entanglement and coordination rather than a group of individual moving together by avoiding each other. The team used studies of the worms to build computer simulations and robotic worm blobs which could lead to the design of swarm robots for real world applications. While the work itself is engaging, Bhama takes other steps to bring the public and researchers in on the science. He partner was an artist to develop commentics in several languages about each of his LBGT 's projects and brings students and trainees from underrepresented backgrounds into the lab and slide demonstrations at Atlanta zoo and highly active on social media . In some his work is fantastic in the beasts in

studies and the way he engaging the public in diversified science. Thank you, I'll turn thing over to Margaret Martonosi assistant Director for science and engineering. ≫ So, thank you, Joanne. Now for something completely

different. Let me take a little poll. How confident are you with the privacy of your personal information? [ Laughter ] So, the motivation for this work is clear, data preaches dominate the news and cause millions of dollars in economic impact. NSF programs fund research that fundamentally improved how people, systems companies and government can best navigate this important space. You can think about the breadth of NSF's investments in terms of categories like these. First how must we maintain data privacy when ago Gothed databases are analyzed this is can research data. How can we protect individuals when data is part of a larger advocate. The second is foundations of

privacy. This is information theoretic opportunities for ensuring privacy. Third how do develop human centered approaches to leverage sociotechnical and other research techniques NSFwide to improve privacy. And fourth privacy by design or privacy that works, our society and economy rely on huge amounts of legacy cyber infrastructure. How can we ensure upgrade and integration of privacy support to new cyber infrastructure without breaking the software and systems that are there. Regarding this last question first, NSF funded work recently took on the basic problem or one part of this basic problem.

Basically the problem of how to automatically upgrade web page software to improve privacy without breaking the legacy web page. This sound super mechanical but actually deeply replies under the covers of range of formal program language technique tons do it properly. Tp so, let's take a look at this video to talk more about the sugar coat project which offers a solution to this important problem of privacy and legacy ≫ With support in part from NSF, a research team led by the computer scientists at the University of San Diego are working on a solution. Yet called sugar coat. And it integrates into existing tools to replace privacy threatening scripts with privacy preserving version.

Sugar coat automatically figures out the right balance between privacy and invasiveness and automates the tedious manual process of producing replacement scripts. This changes the game. Keeping analytics companies away from your private data.

≫ That video was one example but NSF fund across this much broader space, here I filled in more examples and their long term impacts as well. First in terms of privacy and aggregated data sets, a great example here is egg neck known as Siff reference privacy . Differential privacy uses rigorous techniques that blur data to reduce mathematical risks of education. Originally funded over ten yearsal , DPE aused in Google products, including probably your cell phone and used in the U.S. Census data as well.

An example of from the second category goes by the name homomore Fick enChris. This helps maintain privacy even when updating data . Imagine apply a 4 percent salary increase across a database without knowing what the salaries are . Like DP is emerged from NSF funded work and is increasingly employed across the computing industry. Finally how can we best inform users about the privacy implications of systems that they use. One great result example is the notion of privacy nutrition labels. These are similar to the nutrition labels on grocery, they are first proposed by NSF funded research project.

They are now recommended by the Federal trade mission and if you start up a new Apple orring goole product you're I cannily to see some of these. Zooming out here's some many faces of privacy research funded by NSF. We color coded the boxes to show their research type, the categories that I mentioned on the previous slide and the key things to see here is that the portfolio is incredibly broad from mathematics of encryption to deeply human impacts of racial bias and domestic violence. Of course we're not done yet. We're never done on this problem. Data today is being collective and analyzed at unprecedented scale and getting privacy right is really crucial for us as businesses and Democratic institutions.

Why NSF in because NSF supports holistic and interdisciplinary research and programs like secure and trustworthy cyberspace partner across directorates engaging SBE colleagues to ensure by research, like wide transition practice awards foster ideas impacted that you see in the examples on the previous slide. So, with that, it's been a pleasure to share a few examples with you briefly and look forward to future benefits and now, thank you, and I'll hand off you to Dr. Kendra Sharp from OISE. ≫ Thank you so much. Margaret. You've heard about animals, and about privacy and computers and now I'm going to talk to you about cities and nature based solutions. So, the project that I share today is nature based solutions for urban resilience on a changing planet.

This is cool science because the team is, working on system science research that improves design implementation management of nature based solutions around the globe light rally around the globe. The partnership invests in collaborations. What we see, this is great example how the international network increases the power of the research, speed of learning and scale of impact. So, why is it important? We all recall back to August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina nerve stated the Gulf Coast. It was one of the worst disasters to ever strike the U.S.

and it made it clear that the hardened infrastructure was not fail-safe. One what if science and nature together could help us discover resilient and sustainable solutions where failure is not catastrophic and nature has helped some of these solutions consider this urban wetland it buffers conditions by storing excess water and absorbing energy and preventing shore line emotion, and this team called this safer to fail. NSF long supported Natura solutions starting back in 2015. In this probably they envision more resilient cities that had adapt bodyable, socially equity infrastructure despite the fact there are more frequent extreme events and diverse communities and continued urbanization. This team used interdisciplinary systems approaches to assemble technical knowledge from infrastructure , climate, hydrology, demography and institutions, think engineering, GEO and SBE.

They she how these interactor with other factors and stake holders volumes and organizations that manage infrastructure. Two research themes are shown here, both are very timely this summer even just this week. In 2019 NSF funded their next project, you can see the title here. This one looked at convergent urban system science and making that knowledge available to arm U.S. cities with what they need to build integrated resilience strategies for extreme events for example, extreme heat .

They advanced mottling to assess risks of extreme event as a function of land use and focused on four U.S. cities consider this green roof in Brooklyn. Roof top vegetablization is effective way to cool cities and when properly placed they address equity issues by increasing black and brown communities action sense to nature based solutions. Also in 2019 and here's where the international piece comes in , nature rah takes domestic research to the next level through naturalization. Through the network, 45 to be

specific, it gives access to a much more diverse set of contexts, cultures , more powerful data, faster learning and bigger impact. Naturea represents global networks where schoolers share knowledge so they are building up case studies which is speeding learning on safer to fail infrastructure and imimproving communication across disciplines but across the research to practice divide. In 2022. Nature's resource is informing domestic policy makers. For the resent ICC report these provided input me for climate change adaptation.

They briefed the White House office of science and technology policy and just this month, joined a White House round table on nature based solutions. This round table supports Federal actions on climate adaptation. One of the Natura researchers said safe design is balancing community environment and infrastructure towards failing greasefully. What does that mean failing greasefully, consider a system from the Natura network in the Netherlands, instead of building levees, this program egg expected a future of floods and allow them to build in floodplains and reimburse them. This is cheaper than building new levees. In previous discussions with

NSB I shared strategy to demonstrate U.S. global scientific research to focus on science based solutions for dmal challenges this is one example how OISE is doing that. OISE is leveraging expertise again literally around the globe and synthesize learning from around the world to improve both the science and impact of nature based solutions for urban resilience.

This is why it's important for NSF to facilitate international collaboration. It does come down to amplifying the power of research, speed of learning and scale of impact. Thank you. ≫ Dr. Panchanathan: Okay. So, many, many engagements, over the last -- things the last meeting, tons of them. It is not enough to put all of them here but I want to profile a few of them which I'm proud of.

One is the work that we did with our chair, Dr. Dan Reed and upon the invitation of Heather Wilson, as member of the board at the Texas society for Texas academy for science, medicine and engineering . So, I just want to make sure that we had an excellent presentation there and discussion, I'm very happy about that. Likewise, again , under Suresh Garimella . We were there. And more recently we had a presentation with the American innovation forum where we discussed the convergence of policy and technology. Also in Panama, where we took part as part of the global research council chairing the meeting and a lot of partnerships that were build because of the fact that we were able to have this interactions with our fellow agency partners from across the globe another thing we're proud of celebrating is the kind of work the agency does through the Director's awards we're able to celebrate the amazing work done by the staff here and what makes NSF what it is today is the fantastic work that our staff do every day, every day all day, even under difficult circumstantial, particularly in the last two years in the COVID moment, so, I was very happy to be able to recognize those who made exceptional contributions to the agency during the Director's award ceremony.

What makes NSF also do great things is fantastic leadership that NSF has and continues to be able to attract and here I am very , very proud to announce and welcome four individual to NSF leadership. Dr. Kell Lena Craig-Henderson, we all know her already. She was deputy of the social behavior and economic sciences, NSF's new assistant Director for social and behavior economic sciences . Dr.

Craig-Henderson previously served in other roles at NSF including serving as acting AD last January . Kelli, if you're here please stand up . Thank you for taking this leadership role . Janis Coughlin-Piester. You can mess up my name, you have the license to do that . So, Janice joined NSF in the office of budget finance award management prior to becoming the BFA office at NSF, she worked for nine years at Department of Health & Human Services where she served as Director for budget policy education, and reviewing the office of Secretary.

We're happy to have her serve as NSF's chief financial afterer. Can you please get up so people can see you ? Thank you, Janice. [ Applause ] And Teresa Grancorvitz , you wondered what happened to Teresa Grancorvitz.

When you do a good job you're given more . Mrs. Grancorvitz became CFO in the office of budget finance and award management in 2018. Prior to becoming the officer, she worked 22 years at the commission where she last served as budget Director at the Chief Financial Officer. Mrs. Grancorvitz brings extraordinary talent to NSF and I'm proud to welcome here, I'm so proud to advance her as we move into the future.

Please stand up and be recognized . [ Applause ] This announcement I'm going to make is literally hot off the press one hour ago. Ways wanting to make sure we were able to invite. Welcome, because we got all of the paperwork done. Serving as new

assistant Director and education and human resources directorate is Dr. James L. Moore III. Since 2018 Dr. Moore was Vice President for diversity an inclusion at the Ohio State University and managed diverse University and serving more than 6,000 graduate and undergraduate students and faculty and staff throughout the University. He also served as first Executive Director as the third belle national resource center as male and distinguished professor of urban education of college education and ecology . I like to extend a welcome to Dr. Moore and look forward to working with him in his new role at NSF . Dr. Moore?

[ Applause ] I'm a firm believer if you want change , you bring in talent and that's how you get change. I'm proud NSF has amazing leaders with track records to make NSF the place that we all desire it to be for the future of our nation. I like to extend a special welcome as I said to Dr. Moore. I want to take a moment to acknowledge the fantastic work that Dr. Sylvia Butterfield has done, and our leadership is truly stellar, in serving as acting assistant Director for NSF human resources prior to Dr. Moore's appointment. Dr.

Butterfield is she here? Let's continue to thank her as she continues to serve NSF. [ Applause ] As I said, I'm honored to be able to work aroundside extraordinary talent and leaders and know that NSF will achieve amazing things and all of the aspirations that the board has for NSF. You know, when you welcome new people you also say sometimes good-bye, and this is very, very hard to say good by [ Laughter ] This is a person I have known many years since I came to the board the very first time I met Joanne. She's been an amazing leader through the several roles she played at NSF. Since coming to NSF she's been a tremendous partner because her experience is invaluable. Also time to

say good-bye to exemplary Dr. Joanne Tornow. After 23 years she will be retiring this month . Here CAREER Awards of service is nearly unmatched, you will see why, trained as biologist . She spent over a decade in academia coming to NSF. And brought education to the NSF. Joanne held the following positions at NSF. If you want

a role model here see is. AAA fellow, program office, strategic adviser, division Director, assistant Director office head and assistant Director and this has been in three different correctates and offices, mind you . Her most recent position as AD of buy i bio, being listed you'll hear that soon in the top five best agency sub components to work multiple times in engagement and outreach and pressing societal issues like climate change, and broadening participation and biology. Beyond these appointments her advice , mentor ship and kindness touch many at NSF over the past 23 years, I'm sad personally to lose her, please join me in wishing her the best in her retirement.

[ Applause ] Joanne moved us to this new building, if you recall . Those of you at NSF. That was not an easy task. So, talking about doing well, and leadership that has got us here and doing better into the future, I'm so proud to be able to receive these awards on behalf of the NSF and share extraordinary news made possible by NSF staff. NSF was recently recognized for being one of the best places to work in government. NSF moved up three places last year and now ranked second best mid-size agency.

That's a great accomplishment. I'm proud to say two NSF directorates, in all of the Federal agencies there's 432 sub components. All Federal agencies included and top five ranked in sub components two are them are NSF . No. 1

and No. 4, direct of human resources EHR , ranked No. 1, and Director of biological science s ranked No. 4. They rank from 5 to 4 they received recognition for the outstanding work they do as Federal office . I know we're running out of time. I'll finish up very soon. This is a big accomplishment and so I would like to thank all of the folks that work at NSF who do a fantastic job every day, and lastly, we have launched science happen campaign, we need all of your help. We can

discuss the details but this is a very important campaign that we are launching that everybody can take hold of the fact that science happens here, engineering happens here, and I welcome you to participate in this and make it a great success. Thank you, all, and this partnership is something we cherish a lot and look forward to doing greater things in the future through this partnership. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. ≫ Dan Reed: Thank you very much. To our presenters for the thoughtful cool science summaries, thank you for an update. I'm delighted to welcome one of our former colleagues back to talk with us.

Jerry Richmond was a member of the science board. She was confirmed last November as the underSecretary of the science and innovation at the Department of Energy. She's a wonderful scientist, has been recognized at extraordinary levels but she's also a friend of NSF Panch and I jointly thought it would be wonderful to have her come back and share her thoughts about what it is like to be on the other side but also to talk about opportunities, similarities, differences and collaboration possibilities between NSF and the Department of Energy .

So, really delighted to have you here , Geri. And, the floor is yours. ≫ What a treat it is to be here, just to see all of you again. It's sort of like going

home. So, this is really great . I want to share a few slides with you, that I sent for, hopefully they are there. But it's really to get across the idea that it's been a privilege to serve on the National Science Board as it is a tremendous privilege to serve in this position for underSecretary for science and innovation at the Department of Energy.

So, just to give you a little bit of a background of what that portfolio is, so we can have much more time to talk about collaborations in the questions and issues that you have, I was confirmed as the -- the minute I stepped off the board back in November. So, it's been a very good journey so far . Let's go to the next slide, and then I'll pop to different -- who is doing the slides? Great. Okay. So, I'll point at you when we're ready to click . Okay? All right.

So, we have the office of science under my portfolio as underSecretary for science and innovation. Of course, all. Fundamental sciences that overlap so beautifully with what NSF does in its portfolio with regard to the nuclear physics, high energy physics and fusion, all of our basic energy sciences and so forth. And then different from the last administration, but not from the Obama administration is in the applied CISE, which are very extensive also , I got electrical grid, hydrogen, minerals, materials, carbon management. I have been learning a lot about all of this and enjoy it very much. The reason -- the day I came in it was

my in addition to connect these a lot tighter than they had been before . Because in the past they had really been siloed not only within the office of science but also in the applied areas, not staying in their swim lanes and not so much connection between the office of science , so, what I have been working on is really connect all of these programs in our fundamental science area too whether it be biological or physics or always the other area, AI, advanced computing, basic energy sciences, to connect them all. That's really been fun to be able to work with the program officers, and basic sciences with the applied sciences and also find out where there are redundancies to eliminate redundancies to enhance things and make it go better. We have a lot going on right now.

And in particular I want to point out that I work with two other women underSecretaries, Jo Ruby who oversees security side that's off to the left in the hallway I am. Jill takes charge of NSF labs, she's a nuclear physics engineer as well. There's a lot of hot stuff going on these days in politics that's under her realm an the applied energy side is the deployment. The $16 billion now in the

infrastructure bill and Kathleen Hogan is in charge of that. So, what's driving -- what's been center field from all of us and distinguishes it from NSF as you know are 17DOE national laboratories which are engines for innovation. 14 of those are under my umbrella and three of those are the national laboratories which Jill oversee, and there's funding from my from the basic sciences as well as applied sciences. Do I hear an echo? Yeah. Are we okay ? Okay.

As Julia knows she knows the national labs really well having sent a good bit of her life there. But all of these do take funding from the applied sciences as well as basic sciences. And of course then we have all of the universities around the country that we support, too. And centers that we support. But these are it's been such a pleasure to get to know the leadership of national laboratories and especially research officers who I want to talk to you about more in terms of collaborations, but then a history of working in a lot of different areas, so we have 28 users facilities also, where we are good at building facilities on time on budget and operating them, whether they mean light sources , neutron sources or nano science centers . Our analysis, puts the first

exoscale computer up. And there's a lot going on in the laboratories , I want to think about those as we think of collaborations . They are really there to collaborate with NSF and other agencies, too . As they always have been . They are truly jewels in what we do. So, one of the things that hit the most press and we're excited about now, beyond micro electronics and AI and other things we do, are these energy earth shots, these are trying to identify and set up programs that target the remaining major R&D breakthroughs to be achieved in the next decade to follow the press 's goals and we are very specific with regard to the criteria. You can't throw everything and call it an earth shot. We have really identified areas where we can

make a true advance in a decade, all having to do this through advance of greenhouse gas emissions and solve difficult problems that have been hanging out there that stopped us from being able to make progress on the climate change areas, and demonstrate global leadership and engaged stake holders . I worked with DOI in various capacities. This is a different DOE. This is truly amazing and outreach activities to make sure we hit every single part of the country and global what we are doing. And to be able to go all of the way from basic research to applied and then deployment is tremendously exciting. Also a lot of work. So, the three earshots we have announced so are fa are on long duration storagened on carbon capture , and I always do this, and a third one . Hydrogen.

Hydrogen. And we have set with the first three targets we make sure we have a financial goal to reach, with regard to how much it's going to cost to have clean hydrogen in one Allegheny County decade as well as what level of carbon capture and especially free atmospheric carbon capture, so ambient carbon capture as well as batteries and battery storage. fundamental science all of the way through applied sciences and back out again. The next two which we will probably announce in the future one will be basically thermal, so it will be underground thermal heat to come from all of the different areas of the country that we can get energy through thermal sources and another will be off shore wind. Those are the two that you likely hear about in the future and very excited about that . What's really important in all of this, as we look forward, if we are going to really save the planity, if we save the planet, we all have to work together. That's all of the agencies working together

committed to this . It is really all hands on tech. That's why collaborations are incredibly important, in this and everything else that we do . Everything that we do . That's collaborations are important. The quality and activity of the U.S. science system benefits from the diversity of funders on the research. Let me go to the next slide, our last slide. It takes all kind to ensure a healthy planet and sustainable future for all. I have a few logos of the

agencies that we currently collaborate with. Unlike the proposal of Vannevar Bush. We have the benefit of having a number of different science agencies funding sciences and the difference in research portfolios and different agencies and departments, exist in budget size, research domain, connections to government missions, approach to funding and proposal selection, research across technology readiness levels degree of interdisciplinary and nature of the managed infrastructure and on and on. We are lucky to have this number of agencies

working to have different missions but also willing to work together. And these differences make this whole Enterprise that we're all devoted to so much richer and more I cannily to succeed. These are challenging times for all of us, for our nation and for the globe in so many different areas, but it's important then to recognize that the success will come in getting past these challenging or the type of innovative enter prize that we have in this nation and model for what is around the world. With that, I open it up for any questions that you might have or anything that I might be able to answer. ≫ Dan Reed: Thank you for coming and offering those comments. I agree we can do so much more to gather that separately.

Let me ask if there are questions. Heather? ≫ Good to see you. I wonder if you might talk about the kips plus science act and whether there's an opportunity for the department and NSF to work together to expand pathway particularly for talent to get to the national labs because it's one of the things that we're hearing is absolutely vital ? ≫ No, this is really a perfect question to start out with, Heather. It is incredibly important that we work together

on this. The Department of Energy has been working on micro electronics for -- including photo types and development with chips for decades now. We have the facilities that are all set up operating with lots of different companies around the country and I can say that NIST also does translational research in this area, too. I think it's critically important that we all work together. I think we'll have different models that we operate from. Certainly the national labs and their outreach to different states and communities will be important.

NSF is a lot more centered on smaller institutes and universities, I don't have your full plan in front of me, I think in that respect we come together with the same goals in mind but distinct missions how we are going to do that. Critically, critically important is the workforce . We -- COVID has really had an impact on our workforce. I'm sure at other institutions, certainly

at our national laboratories, retention of our really talented people concerns, and bringing in new people concerns us, too. It's been such a pleasure to serve on this board with the Missing Millions and Community College efforts that every time there's a meeting on DOE wherever we're talking about workforce . I'm saying Community College in particular and follow the model that NSF has done. So, I think what's critically important , VIC just mentioned this on the way in, too . Especially for the national laboratories I would like to spend a few minutes later talking about security issue, particularly as TIP is set up.

Because we have such extensive experience there. But having new people come in that might be able to have training on the security side so they can go directly into working with our national laboratories is critically important, and valued. We want to make sure that everyone doing science, that the people doing science, are from every demographic and institution and organization, that you all do, too . We pride ourselves on wanting to reach out just like NSF does. We have the same mission. So, any way that we can work together on workforce issues would be so, so welcome . ≫ Dan Reed: Other questions ? Suresh ≫ Suresh Babu: Also DOE oversees other institutions . Is there any way NSF and DOE can work on that also? ≫ That's a great question, too, Suresh, and the broader issues of collaborations in general, let me say that I've been working -- for me , I love the national lab Directors, and -- and, I also really enjoy working with the CROs, research officers that are in each lab of the 17 labs, and I've been talking to them about mechanisms by which we can facilitate collaborations with NSF on topics like this, like manufacturing and so forth.

So, I would like to propose after talking to them, and they are very enthusiastic about doing this, is setting up a series of workshops, topical workshops which bring together appropriate NSF people and appropriate DOE people to really talk about what a collaboration would look like and start to plan out mapping out how to -- we still have our own missions, and we can start to identify , but we can start to identify common themes, and so we're not on top of each other, but we're actually working together collaboratively going forward so it makes it a lot better. Because I worry a lot about the fact that if we don't stay in contact, we're going to have a lot of duplicity that will be tremendous waste. So, anyway, they're very excited about this, I'm very excited about this, whether it be manufacturing, certainly AI, quantum is doing a really good job across NSF and DOE right now . We can throw NIST in there, too. They are really good about this, too. Anyway, AI, I think about energy issues for the earth shots, this is really important including the geosciences.

There's just a lot having to do with critical minerals, supply chain finish you was critical minerals . Both sides have tremendous issues going on there. I wrote down micro electronics that we talked about. There's a lot of riverness there. Security issues, we have a tremendous amount of experience in the labs, and also security issues, especially as I think of NSF moving into a realm where you have to worry about security even more, and what does it mean to publish? What is open publication? and we worked really hard on how to do that. So, being able to help train folks, we would be happy to help train folks, how we operate on security issues, I could imagine, this would be a great way for us to also work forward together, especially in the applied area, and on workforce issues, those are a few that I listed.

But the our research officers from the labses, I just talked to them again this morning. They really want to see us all move forward together on this in a collaborative mode like scientists do . They are really excited to do something like this , many workshops to get us started thinking about how we move forward and think about a plan they can report back to me and the Director of office of science and Panch, so we can work together in a way that's as much bottom up as much as top down. ≫ Dan Reed: Artie has a question , then Vic .

≫ Arthur Bienenstock: Geri when you were on the board you were concerned about the inconsistency of graduate funding in portion response to your leadership here, the NSF has increased the graduate research fellowship stipend . What is the DOE doing in that area ? ≫ The Oscar fellowships were announced in the fall, actually in the spring, computer science, they are 45K a year, in '24, we have on the plan to have -- to create a graduate fellows program, modeled after NSF's, that would probably be the fellowships at energy, and we are planning in the budget to start at 300 of those, with 45K and 15K to the institutions and we hope to expand those to 500 in the year after that. So, we are -- everyone under how important the graduate student are, and sufficient fund for them to be able to pursue a graduate degree if they are from families or situations that have financial birds. So, Artie, you and me, we were pal on the board on this and had a lot of buy- in from everybody else on this. I think of you every day that I try to push on issues, that others have taken quite seriously.

They have come from the office of science but will be in the applied areas, too. That's the plan. ≫ Arthur Bienenstock: Right. ≫ Funding permitted. ≫ Geri. Glad to see you, outindividual of the funding priorities, outside of that you can view those as 17 innovation sent earns and working within the communities in terms much workforce development and other things. Could you share with us approaches you have toward engaging industry, how might we do that together as NSF as well as lessons learned? ≫ Yeah, we have a history of working with industry.

You know, I can think of -- particularly the national laboratory where companies have come in to use the advanced collided source in order to characterize. I don't call them micro electronics I call them nano electronics to use the facilities there. They have all worked with a lot of industry b

2022-08-05 01:53

Show Video

Other news