NIST Seeks Grant Proposals for Disaster Resilience Research Studies National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO) on July 26, 2016 to help further President Obama’s April 2016 commitment to enhancing the nation’s built resilient infrastructure. This competition is designed to encourage research in the areas of windstorm impact reduction and structural performance, disaster and failure studies, wildland urban interface, and national earthquake hazards reduction. The Disaster Resilience (DR) Research Grants Program seeks applications from eligible applicants to conduct research aimed at advancing the principles of resilience in building design and building codes and standards. Research proposals must support the overall effort of developing science-based building codes by […]

The following is a Dear Colleague Letter from the National Science Foundation‘s Directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and Engineering (ENG), announcing their support of research that advances the positive use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS).  August 8, 2016 Dear Colleagues, With this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and Engineering (ENG) announce their intention to support, foster, and accelerate fundamental research that advances the positive use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to save lives, increase safety and efficiency, and enable more effective science and engineering research. These research investments will be made through existing […]

The following is an announcement from the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) National Coordination Office (NCO).  The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) National Coordination Office (NCO) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Bryan Biegel as its new Director. Dr. Biegel joins the NITRD NCO from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where he served as Deputy Chief of the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division. He also served as the NASA Representative on the NITRD Subcommittee and Co-chair for the High End Computing (HEC) Interagency Working Group (IWG). Prior to joining the NASA NAS Management Team, Dr. Biegel worked as a contractor at the […]

The White House recently released a blog celebrating the one year anniversary of the National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI), which was created to ensure continued U.S. leadership in high-performance computing (HPC). The blog details the important steps various Federal agencies have taken to create the foundation for a long-lasting and successful Federal initiative. A few examples are summarized below. See the White House blog to learn more. The Department of Energy (DOE) has invested in a suite of efforts to continue developing the research base for “Post-Moore’s Law era” computing. These activities include convenings, such as a workshop on neuromorphic computing and a science roundtable with representatives from national laboratories and […]

The following blog post is by CCC Vice Chair and University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Mark D. Hill.  I write about a recent Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB), an operating unit within the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, workshop report “Continuing Innovation in Information Technology.” This report updates famous “Tire Tracks” diagram for IT (Figure I.1, P. 5). Literally, “tire tracks” is a dense illustration of how federally-funded university research and industrial research and development (R&D) precede the emergence of large IT industries by decades. On one hand, this diagram shows “old” areas like Personal Computers that exceeded $1G annual revenue in the mid-1980s and then exceeded $10G the early 2000s. On the other hand, it […]

The National Privacy Research Strategy by the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program (NITRD) has been released!  The National Privacy Research Strategy calls for research in science and engineering that will enable the U.S. to benefit from innovative data use while protecting privacy. Research agencies from across the government participated in the development of the strategy, reviewing existing Federal research activities in privacy-enhancing technologies, soliciting inputs from the private sector, and identifying priorities for privacy research funded by the Federal Government. In May 2015, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) commissioned members of the privacy research community to generate a short report to help guide strategic […]