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What’s Ahead
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| SLAC announced last week that its director, Chi-Chang Kao, plans to step down. (Image credit – Dawn Harmer / SLAC) |
Search Begins for Next SLAC Director
SLAC National Accelerator Lab announced on Oct. 27 that Chi-Chang Kao plans to step down as laboratory director pending the selection of a successor. Kao has held the position since 2012 and has overseen construction of Linac Coherent Light Source II, a $1 billion X-ray free electron laser user facility. The facility is set to come online early next year and the lab is already deep into planning an upgrade project for it. In addition, the lab is planning to upgrade the Materials in Extreme Conditions instrument to achieve petawatt-scale laser power at the facility. During Kao’s time as director, SLAC has also built its upgraded Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experimental Tests (FACET-II) and is almost finished constructing the largest-ever camera for astronomy for the new Vera Rubin Observatory. The search committee for the next director will be led by Stanford University Dean of Research Kam Moler. Oak Ridge National Lab is also seeking a successor for its director, Thomas Zacharia, who is stepping down at the end of the year.
White House Spotlights Harassment Risk in Remote Regions
On Tuesday, the White House is hosting a roundtable on preventing harassment in “isolated research environments,” such as polar regions and oceanographic research vessels. Among the speakers are Smithsonian Institution Under Secretary for Science and Research Ellen Stofan and Roberta Marinelli, director of the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs. Both organizations have grappled with reports of sexual harassment at the research sites they support, specifically the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and NSF’s Antarctic facilities, and NSF recently announced that it is expanding its sexual harassment prevention and response efforts in Antarctica. Also participating in the event are representatives from the Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health, and other government agencies, as well as scientists from the disciplines of ecology, geography, and oceanography. This week’s event builds on a roundtable on “ensuring safety and opportunity in STEM environments” that the White House held in July.
NSF Geosciences Advisory Committee Convening
The National Science Foundation’s Geosciences Advisory Committee (AC-GEO) is holding a two-day meeting late this week. On Thursday, Geosciences Directorate head Alexandra Isern will discuss NSF’s response to the 21st Century GEO report the committee completed last year. While the committee originally had been tasked with identifying research priorities for the directorate, it received feedback from the research community that “any small group of American geoscientists (e.g., AC-GEO) may not have sufficient breadth of perspectives to identify the highest priorities for all research domains represented by the directorate.” The committee opted instead to assemble a broader report on the importance of the geosciences, issues of equity and inclusion, and “current procedural issues” within the directorate. The committee will also discuss NSF’s broader impacts criteria with program officers from across the directorate. On Friday, the committee will hear updates on a pair of special sessions it held earlier this month on the “impacts of the current economic climate on research.”
Panel to Discuss CHIPS and Science Act Implementation
On Tuesday, the publication Issues in Science and Technology is hosting a roundtable on the CHIPS and Science Act, focused on the challenges facing its successful implementation. The discussion will cover both the semiconductor initiatives funded through the act as well as its expansive science policy provisions, which set ambitious budget targets that Congress would have to meet through future appropriations. Participating are Vassar College’s Yu Zhou, University of South Florida’s Steven Currall, Harvard University’s Venkatesh Narayanamurti, and Arizona State University’s Maryann Feldman, all of whom contributed to a special section on the CHIPS and Science Act in the fall edition of Issues. The event will be moderated by FYI science policy analyst Will Thomas.
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In Case You Missed It
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| Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at an Oct. 27 press conference on the National Defense Strategy. (Image credit – Petty Officer 2nd Class Alexander Kubitza / DOD) |
US Updates Stance on Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
The Department of Defense released an 80-page National Defense Strategy last week that includes the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and the Missile Defense Review (MDR), which formally outline the Biden administration’s stance toward the development and use of nuclear weapons and missile defenses. The reviews are traditionally conducted by each new presidential administration and published as separate, longer documents, but the Biden administration chose to transmit the classified versions to Congress in March and combine the public versions in a single report released shortly after the White House published its new National Security Strategy. Together, the documents continue the Trump administration’s focus on nation-state competition with China and Russia while placing a greater emphasis on nuclear arms control and transnational threats such as climate change. The NPR mostly endorses the current comprehensive modernization of the nuclear weapons stockpile, drawing criticism from arms control advocates. It also states the National Nuclear Security Administration will establish a “Science and Technology Innovation Initiative” that aims to “reduce the time and cost required to design and produce weapons with the most modern technologies that are most responsive to potential threats.” The MDR does not discuss the potential of developing directed-energy defenses or space-based interceptors, in contrast to the Trump administration’s version of the document, but generally identifies a need to develop missile defense technologies that are “more mobile, flexible, survivable, and affordable.” Biden administration officials are elaborating on the NPR and MDR at events on Tuesday and Friday, respectively.
Export Curbs on China Expected to Expand to New Tech Areas
Alan Estevez, head of the Commerce Department’s export control bureau, said last week the U.S. is likely to implement further curbs on exports of critical technologies to China, adding to the expansive restrictions just placed on the semiconductor industry. Estevez listed artificial intelligence, quantum information science, and biotechnology as candidates, citing priority technologies mentioned in a recent speech by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Estevez also reiterated Sullivan’s announcement that the U.S. will seek to use export controls to “maintain as large of a lead as possible,” rather than use a “sliding scale” approach that eases restrictions on earlier generations of technology over time. Pointing to the new restrictions on advanced semiconductor chips, Estevez explained, “We set a floor and expect to be standing on that floor.” He insisted the U.S. does not intend to bring about the “economic destruction of China” and that the new controls are “purely about national security,” adding they would not be lifted unless the Chinese government stopped threatening behaviors such as economic coercion, intellectual property theft, and human rights abuses.
NASA Reschedules Launch of Psyche Asteroid Mission
As an independent review of NASA’s Psyche mission neared completion last week, the agency announced the spacecraft is now scheduled to launch in October 2023. Psyche was originally supposed to set off this past August to investigate a metallic asteroid of the same name, but NASA scrapped those plans in June when it determined software testing could not be completed in time and initiated the review to determine next steps. Because the revised launch schedule entails using a less favorable trajectory, the year-long delay will push back Psyche’s arrival date at the asteroid from 2026 to 2029. NASA had spent over $700 million on Psyche as of June, out of a total anticipated lifecycle cost of nearly $1 billion, and revised budget projections have not yet been released. In principle, the review could have recommended terminating the mission, and NASA indicated that lessons it identifies will be applied across the agency’s science portfolio. Psyche is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is part of the agency’s Discovery program, which funds smaller-scale planetary science missions. (Correction: This item previously misidentified Psyche as part of NASA’s New Frontiers program.)
Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter Dead at 68
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| Defense Secretary Ash Carter speaking to troops in 2016. (Image credit – Army Sgt. Amber I. Smith / DOD) |
Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter, a key figure in shaping U.S. defense research and innovation policy, died suddenly on Oct. 24 following a heart attack. Carter moved into defense policy soon after receiving a doctorate in theoretical physics in 1979 from Oxford University, first as a staff member at Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) and then the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He took up an academic appointment at MIT in 1982 before settling at Harvard University two years later. In 1984, Carter wrote an influential report for OTA that was deeply critical of President Reagan’s plans to develop a space-based directed-energy ballistic missile defense system. During the Clinton administration, he served as a senior official at the Departments of Defense and State, and from 1997 to 2009 he co-directed the Preventative Defense Project at Harvard and Stanford Universities with William Perry, who had served as President Clinton’s defense secretary.
Carter returned to the Pentagon during the Obama administration, initially as under secretary for acquisition, technology, and logistics, then as deputy defense secretary from 2011 to 2013 and defense secretary from 2015 to 2017. In all these roles, he worked to reorient defense R&D and technology systems acquisition away from the immediate needs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and toward a renewed era of “great power competition.” Calling this shift the “Third Offset Strategy” in a nod to technology initiatives pursued in the late 1970s, Carter sought to increase prototyping and testing of potentially game-changing military technologies and to foster stronger relations with innovative, fast-paced companies. These efforts had only begun to ramp up by the end of the Obama presidency, but they have generally continued under the Trump and Biden administrations, aided by a vastly expanded budget for R&D, test, and evaluation. Carter became director of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs after leaving the Pentagon, and at the time of his death he was also serving as a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
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Events This Week Monday, October 31
Tuesday, November 1
(continues through Thursday)
Wednesday, November 2
Thursday, November 3
Friday, November 4
Saturday, November 5
Monday, November 7
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Opportunities NSF Seeking Input on Helping Low-Income STEM Students
The National Science Foundation is hosting listening sessions on Nov. 4 and Nov. 7 focused on the “strengths, challenges, and needs of low-income students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees in STEM areas and how they can be better supported.” The sessions are open to any members of the public who engage with low-income students in STEM, including university faculty and administrators, students, researchers, and representatives from nonprofit organizations, private industry, and government agencies.
UCS Hiring Equity Fellow for Nuclear Weapons Project
The Union of Concerned Scientists is seeking candidates for a two-year fellowship focused on researching the “adverse impacts of nuclear weapons production on impacted communities in Washington State.” The fellow will also help develop programs to “expand the capacity of advocates, including frontline community members, in research, policy, and regulatory spaces.” Candidates should have a doctoral degree or equivalent experience in a field such as epidemiology, health physics, or environmental sciences. Applications are due Nov. 20.
RPI Hiring Science Policy Professor
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Department of Science and Technology Studies is hiring three tenure-track faculty members, including one with a focus on science policy and innovation. The department is particularly seeking candidates with expertise in areas such as the governance of emerging science and technology, knowledge production and diffusion, institutional approaches to research priority setting, and equity and responsibility. Priority will be given to applications received by Dec. 15.
Know of an upcoming science policy event either inside or outside the Beltway? Email us at fyi@aip.org.
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