The projects range from research into language model safety and synthetic data generation for privacy, to developing a model for aquatic sciences and using AI for identifying agricultural pests, according to a release from the NSF. Of those projects, 27 will be supported on NSF-funded advanced computing systems and eight projects will have access to those supported by DOE, including the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

“You will see among these 35 projects’ unbelievable span in terms of geography, in terms of ideas, core ideas, as well as application interests,” NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said at a White House event. 

The NAIRR, which launched earlier this year in pilot form as part of President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI, is aimed at providing researchers with the resources needed to carry out their work on AI by providing access to advanced computing, data, software, and AI models.

The pilot is composed of contributions from multiple federal agencies and private sector partners, including Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, NVIDIA, Intel, and IBM. Those contributions include access to supercomputers; datasets from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and access to models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta.

In addition to the project awards, NSF also announced the NAIRR pilot has opened the next opportunity to apply for access to research resources, including cloud computing platforms and access to foundation models, according to the release. That includes resources from nongovernmental partners and NSF-supported platforms.

Panchanathan described the appetite for the resource as “pretty strong,” noting that 50 projects have been reviewed as positive. But he said there aren’t yet resources to scale those 50 projects. “There is so much need, and so we need more resources to be brought to the table,” Panchanathan said.

While the pilot continues, there are also bipartisan efforts in Congress to codify and fully fund a full-scale NAIRR. Panchanathan and Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar underscored the need for that legislation Monday.

“Fully establishing NAIRR is going to take significant funding, and we’re happy to see that Congress has initiated action,” Prabhaker said, adding that the White House is hopeful “that full funding will be achieved.”

The post NSF, Energy announce first 35 projects to access National AI Research Resource pilot appeared first on FedScoop.

When the Biden administration brought four companies, including Microsoft, to the White House in May to discuss AI, it gave those firms “homework assignments” to show what they were prepared to do to address safe, secure, and transparent use of the technology, Smith said on a panel about AI regulation around the world.

Though the assignment was due by the end of the month, Smith recalled that Microsoft was “proud” to have submitted a first draft quickly. The following day, however, the feedback came in.

“We sent it in on Sunday, and on Monday morning I had a call with [White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo], and they said, ‘Congratulations, you got it in first. You know what your grade is? Incomplete,’” Smith said. Prabhakar was also on the Wednesday panel in Davos, Switzerland.

The officials, he said, told Microsoft to build upon what they submitted. “And it broke the cycle that often happens when policymakers are saying ‘do this’ and industry is saying ‘that’s not practical.’ And especially for new technology that was evolving so quickly, it actually made it possible to speed up the pace,” Smith said.

Engagement with companies has been a key aspect of the Biden administration’s efforts to develop a U.S. policy for AI use and regulation, including obtaining voluntary commitments from firms that they’ll manage the risks posed by the budding and rapidly growing technology. 

“I don’t think that all of these governments would have gotten as far as they did by December if you hadn’t engaged some of the companies in that way,” Smith said.

Smith’s comment came after Prabhakar addressed the administration’s work with companies on the Wednesday panel, saying that Microsoft and others are on the “leading edge” of the technology. But she also noted that the administration engaged with small companies, civil society, workers, labor unions, and academia.

“I actually think this is an important part of our philosophy of regulation and governance, is not to just do it top-down and sit in our offices and make up answers,” Prabhakar said. “The way effective governance happens is with all those parties at the table.”

The post Microsoft’s Brad Smith said AI ‘homework’ from White House helped speed pace of action appeared first on FedScoop.

“In parallel with [the AI executive order], we also have announced previously that the Office of Management and Budget is putting out guidance for how the government uses AI,” Arati Prabhakar, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and Biden’s top technology adviser, said during a Washington Post event. “And that is a very big deal because getting that right is a tremendous opportunity for leadership.”

“Staff has been working [on the OMB guidance] in parallel with the EO and I expect that to be released soon,” Prabhakar added.

There have been multiple reports this week stating that the White House had sent out invitations for a “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence” event on Oct. 30. The AI executive order is expected to be announced during the Biden-hosted event. 

Prabhakar in September teased the upcoming AI executive order, saying that it will determine how the executive branch uses AI to mitigate risks while also “seizing the huge opportunities.” The EO will “be broad,” she added.

The OMB guidance on AI is expected to be far more detailed about how specifically federal agencies and officials should implement AI technology and policies within their organizations. 

The post OSTP’s Arati Prabhakar says OMB guidance on AI to be released ‘soon’ after AI executive order appeared first on FedScoop.

Speaking with FedScoop, five AI policy experts said adhering to both the White House’s Blueprint for an AI ‘Bill of Rights’ and the AI Risk Management Framework (RMF), published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, presents an obstacle for companies working to develop responsible AI products.

However, the White House and civil rights groups have pushed back on claims that the two voluntary AI safety frameworks send conflicting messages and have highlighted that they are a productive “starting point” in the absence of congressional action on AI. 

The two policy documents form the foundation of the Biden administration’s approach to regulating artificial intelligence. But for many months, there has been an active debate among AI experts regarding how helpful — or in some cases hindering — the Biden administration’s dual approach to AI policymaking has been.

The White House’s Blueprint for an AI ‘Bill of Rights’ was published last October. It takes a rights-based approach to AI, focusing on broad fundamental human rights as a starting point for the regulation of the technology. That was followed by the risk-based AI RMF in January, which set out to determine the scale and scope of risks related to concrete use cases and recognized threats to instill trustworthiness into the technology.

Speaking with FedScoop, Daniel Castro, a technology policy scholar and vice president at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), noted that there are “big, major philosophical differences in the approach taken by the two Biden AI policy documents,” which are creating “different [and] at times adverse” outcomes for the industry.

“A lot of companies that want to move forward with AI guidelines and frameworks want to be doing the right thing but they really need more clarity. They will not invest in AI safety if it’s confusing or going to be a wasted effort or if instead of the NIST AI framework they’re pushed towards the AI blueprint,” Castro said.

Castro’s thoughts were echoed by Adam Thierer of the libertarian nonprofit R Street Institute who said that despite a sincere attempt to emphasize democratic values within AI tools, there are “serious issues” with the Biden administration’s handling of AI policy driven by tensions between the two key AI frameworks.

“The Biden administration is trying to see how far it can get away with using their bully pulpit and jawboning tactics to get companies and agencies to follow their AI policies, particularly with the blueprint,” Thierer, senior fellow on the Technology and Innovation team at R Street, told FedScoop.

Two industry sources who spoke with FedScoop but wished to remain anonymous said they felt pushed toward the White House’s AI blueprint over the NIST AI framework in certain instances during meetings regarding AI policymaking with the White House’s Office of Science and Technology (OSTP).

Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., chair of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, and House Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., have been highly critical of the White House blueprint as it compares to the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, expressing concern earlier this year that the blueprint sends “conflicting messages about U.S. federal AI policy.”

In a letter obtained exclusively by FedScoop, Arati Prabhakar responded to those concerns, arguing that “these documents are not contradictory” and highlighting how closely the White House and NIST are working together on future regulation of the technology.

At the same time, some industry AI experts say the way in which the two documents define AI clash with one another.

Nicole Foster, who leads global AI and machine learning policy at Amazon Web Services, said chief among the concerns with the documents are diverging definitions of the technology itself. She told FedScoop earlier this year that “there are some inconsistencies between the two documents for sure. I think just at a basic level they don’t even define things like AI in the same way.”

Foster’s thoughts were echoed by Raj Iyer, global head of public sector at cloud software provider ServiceNow and former CIO of the U.S. Army, who believes the two frameworks are a good starting point to get industry engaged in AI policymaking but that they lack clarity.

“I feel like the two frameworks are complementary. But there’s clearly some ambiguity and vagueness in terms of definition,” said Iyer.

“So what does the White House mean by automated systems? Is it autonomous systems? Is it automated decision-making? What is it? I think it’s very clear that they did that to kind of steer away from wanting to have a direct conversation on AI,” Iyer added.

Hodan Omaar, an AI and quantum research scholar working with Castro at ITIF, said the two documents appear to members of the tech industry as if they are on different tracks. According to Omaar, the divergence creates a risk that organizations will simply defer to either the “Bill of Rights” or the NIST RMF and ignore the other.

“There are two things the White House should be doing. First, it should better elucidate the ways the Blueprint should be used in conjunction with the RMF. And second, it should better engage with stakeholders to gather input on how the Blueprint can be improved and better implemented by organizations,” Omaar told FedScoop.

In addition to compatibility concerns about the two documents, experts have also raised concerns about the process followed by the White House to take industry feedback in creating the documents.

Speaking with FedScoop anonymously in order to speak freely, one industry association AI official said that listening sessions held by the Office of Science and Technology Policy were not productive.

“The Bill of Rights and the development of that, we have quite a bit of concern because businesses were not properly consulted throughout that process,” the association official said. 

The official added: “OSTP’s listening sessions were just not productive or helpful. We tried to actually provide input in ways in which businesses could help them through this process. Sadly, that’s just not what they wanted.”

The AI experts’ comments come as the Biden administration works to establish a regulatory framework that mitigates potential threats posed by the technology while supporting American AI innovation. Last month, the White House secured voluntary commitments from seven leading AI companies about how AI is used, and it is expected to issue a new executive order on AI safety in the coming weeks.

One of the contributors to the White House’s AI Blueprint sympathizes with concerns from industry leaders and AI experts regarding the confusion and complexity of the administration’s approach to AI policymaking. But it’s also an opportunity for companies seeking voluntary AI policymaking guidance to put more effort into asking themselves hard questions, he said.

“So I understand the concerns very much. And I feel the frustration. And I understand people just want clarity. But clarity will only come once you understand the implications, the broader values, discussion and the issues in the context of your own AI creations,” said Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a Brown University professor and former top official within the White House’s OSTP, where he helped co-author its Blueprint for an ‘AI Bill of Rights.’ 

“The goal is not to say: Do every single thing in these frameworks. It’s like, understand the issues, understand the values at play here. Understand the questions you need to be asking from the RMF and the Blueprint, and then make your own decisions,” said Venkatasubramanian.

On top of that, the White House Blueprint co-author wants those who criticize the documents’ perceived contradictions to be more specific in their complaints.

“Tell me a question in the NIST RMF that contradicts a broader goal in the White House blueprint — find one for me, or two or three. I’m not saying this because I think they don’t exist. I’m saying this because if you could come up with these examples, then we could think through what can we do about it?” he said.

Venkatasubramanian added that he feels the White House AI blueprint in particular has faced resistance from industry because “for the first time someone in a position of power came out and said: What about the people?” when it comes to tech innovation and regulations. 

Civil rights groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center have also joined the greater discussion about AI regulations, pushing back on the notion that industry groups should play any significant role in the policymaking of a rights-based document created by the White House.

“I’m sorry that industry is upset that a policy document is not reflective of their incentives, which is just to make money and take people’s data and make whatever decisions they want to make more contracts. It’s a policy document, they don’t get to write it,” said Ben Winters, the senior counsel at EPIC, where he leads their work on AI and human rights.

Groups like EPIC and a number of others have called upon the Biden administration to take more aggressive steps to protect the public from the potential harms of AI.

“I actually don’t think that the Biden administration has taken a super aggressive role when trying to implement these two frameworks and policies that the administration has set forth. When it comes to using the frameworks for any use of AI within the government or federal contractors or recipients of federal funds, they’re not doing enough in terms of using their bully pulpit and applying pressure. I really don’t think they’re doing too much yet,” said Winters.

Meanwhile, the White House has maintained that the two AI documents were created for different purposes but designed to be used side-by-side as initial voluntary guidance, noting that both OSTP and NIST were involved in the creation of both frameworks.

OSTP spokesperson Subhan Cheema said: “President Biden has been clear that companies have a fundamental responsibility to ensure their products are safe before they are released to the public, and that innovation must not come at the expense of people’s rights and safety. That’s why the administration has moved with urgency to advance responsible innovation that manage the risks posed by AI and seize its promise — including by securing voluntary commitments from seven leading AI companies that will help move us toward AI development that is more safe, secure, and trustworthy.”

“These commitments are a critical step forward and build on the administration’s Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and AI Risk Management Framework. The administration is also currently developing an executive order that will ensure the federal government is doing everything in its power to support responsible innovation and protect people’s rights and safety, and will also pursue bipartisan legislation to help America lead the way in responsible innovation,” Cheema added.

NIST did not respond to requests for comment.

The post Experts warn of ‘contradictions’ in Biden administration’s top AI policy documents appeared first on FedScoop.

In a letter obtained exclusively by FedScoop, Arati Prabhakar responded to concerns raised by senior House lawmakers on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee and the House Oversight Committee over apparent contradictions in definitions of AI used in the documents.

“These documents are not contradictory. For example, in terms of the definition of AI, the Blueprint does not adopt a definition of AI, but instead focuses on the broader set of “automated systems,” Prabhakar wrote in a letter sent to House Science Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., and Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., a few months ago.

“Furthermore, both the AI RMF and the Blueprint propose that meaningful access to an AI system for evaluation should incorporate measures to protect intellectual property law,” Prabhakar added.

In the letter, Prabhakar also described the “critical roles” both documents play in managing risks from AI and automated systems, and said they illustrate how closely the White House and NIST are working together on future regulation of the technology.

The two Republican leaders sent a letter in January to the OSTP director voicing concern that the White House’s AI ‘Bill of Rights’ blueprint document is sending “conflicting messages about U.S. federal AI policy.”

Chairman Lucas and Chairman Comer were highly critical of the White House blueprint as it compares with the NIST AI risk management framework.

Prabhakar in her letter also noted the close partnership between NIST and OSTP regarding AI policymaking and the high engagement both entities have had with relevant stakeholders within industry and civil society in crafting AI policy.

She also highlighted that the AI ‘Bill of Rights’ document recognizes the need to protect technology companies’ intellectual property. Although it calls for the use of confidentiality waivers for designers, developers and deployers of automated systems, it says that such waivers should incorporate “measures to protect intellectual property and trade secrets from unwarranted disclosure as appropriate.”

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in April that NIST’s AI framework represents the “gold standard” for the regulatory guidance of AI technology and the framework has also been popular with the tech industry.

This came after the Biden administration in October 2022 published its AI ‘Bill of Rights’ Blueprint, which consists of five key principles for regulating the technology: safe and effective systems, algorithmic discrimination protections, data privacy, notice and explanation and human alternatives, consideration and fallback.

Chairman Lucas and Chairman Comer’s engagement with OSTP earlier this year regarding conflicting messages being sent by the Biden administration on AI policy followed concerns expressed by industry and academia about varying definitions within the two documents and how they relate to the definitions used by other federal government agencies.

While they are both non-binding, AI experts and lawmakers have warned about the chilling effect that lack of specificity within framework documents could have on innovation both inside government and across the private sector.

“We’re at a critical juncture with the development of AI and it’s crucial we get this right. We need to give companies useful tools so that AI is developed in a trustworthy fashion, and we need to make sure we’re empowering American businesses to stay at the cutting edge of this competitive industry,” Chairman Lucas said in a statement to FedScoop.

“That’s why our National AI Initiative called for a NIST Risk Management Framework. Any discrepancies between that guidance and other White House documents can create confusion for industry. We can’t afford that because it will reduce our ability to develop and deploy safe, trustworthy, and reliable AI technologies,” he added.

Meanwhile, the White House has repeatedly said the two AI documents were created for different purposes but designed to be used side-by-side and noted that both the executive branch and the Department of Commerce had been involved in the creation of both frameworks.

OSTP spokesperson Subhan Cheema said: “President Biden has been clear that companies have a fundamental responsibility to ensure their products are safe before they are released to the public, and that innovation must not come at the expense of people’s rights and safety. That’s why the Administration has moved with urgency to advance responsible innovation that manage the risks posed by AI and seize its promise—including by securing voluntary commitments from seven leading AI companies that will help move us toward AI development that is more safe, secure, and trustworthy.”

“These commitments are a critical step forward, and build on the Administration’s Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and AI Risk Management Framework. The Administration is also currently developing an executive order that will ensure the federal government is doing everything in its power to support responsible innovation and protect people’s rights and safety, and will also pursue bipartisan legislation to help America lead the way in responsible innovation,” Cheema added.

Editor’s note, 8/2/23: This story was updated to add further context about NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework and prior concerns raised by AI experts.

The post White House science adviser defends ‘conflicting’ AI frameworks released by Biden admin appeared first on FedScoop.

The conversation was attended by several high-profile union leaders, including American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, Writers Guild of America, East executive director Lowell Peterson, and AFL-CIO Technology Institute director Amanda Ballantyne. Several administration officials, including Arati Prabhakar, Office of Science and Technology Policy director, and Celeste Drake, the deputy director of the National Economic Council.

“Leaders of unions representing diverse sectors of the economy raised concerns about the risks of AI for workers’ jobs, physical and mental health, and privacy and civil rights,” said a readout of the listening session released by the White House press office. “The discussion also covered implications of AI for workers’ privacy, civil rights, and autonomy— including from employers’ use of AI to monitor and collect data on workers.”

The session comes as artificial intelligence has become a growing topic of discussion among union leaders. For example, the use of generative AI tools like Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT have spurred critical questions for unions representing writers, while the prospect of self-driving car technologies and AI-based monitoring has raised new challenges for delivery sector labor groups.

The post White House hosts AI-focused listening session with union leaders appeared first on FedScoop.

The National Ignition Facility’s design team fed the experimental design to the Cognitive Simulation (CogSim) machine-learning team for analysis, and it found the resulting fusion reactions would likely create more energy than was used to start the process — leading to ignition.

LLNL’s laser-based inertial confinement fusion research device is the size of three football fields and shot 192 laser beams — delivering 2.05 megajoules of ultraviolet energy to an almost perfectly round fuel capsule made of diamond — causing 3.15 megajoules’ worth of fusion ignition in a lab for the first time during the latest experiment. The achievement strengthens U.S. energy independence and national security with nuclear testing prohibited, and CogSim machine-learning models helped ensure the experiment avoided the previous year’s pitfalls. 

“Last week our pre-shot predictions, improved by machine learning and the wealth of data we’ve collected, indicated that we had a better than 50% chance of exceeding the target gain of 1,” said LLNL Director Kim Budil, during a press conference at the Department of Energy on Tuesday.

NIF’s design team benchmarks complex plasma physics simulations and analytical models against experimental data collected over 60 years to create designs that will reach the extreme conditions required for fusion ignition. The most recent experiment reached pressures two times greater than the Sun’s and a temperature of 150 million degrees.

CogSim may run thousands of machine-learning simulations of an experimental design in the lead up.

“We have made quite a bit of advancements in our machine-learning models to kind of tie together our complex radiation hydrodynamics simulations of the experimental data and learning,” said Annie Kritcher, principal designer.

But NIF’s August 8, 2021 experiment reached the threshold for ignition, and September’s experiment paved the way for a new laser capability. So the design team relied on traditional methods for the latest experiment and only used machine learning for predictions.

For this experiment the design team thickened the fuel capsule to widen the margin of success and burn more fuel and used improved models to increase the symmetry of the implosion by transferring more energy between laser beams in the second half and readjusting the first half of the pulse.

Kritcher credited those changes for the experiment’s success, though she called capsule defects, which are tougher to model and predict, the “main driver” in performance. While the diamond capsule is 100 times smoother than a mirror, X-ray tomography must be used to see, measure and count defects — generating a lot of data that software now helps analyze.

The robust capsule employed in the most recent experiment was not the most effective option, meaning future experiments should see improved performance, said Michael Stadermann, Target Fabrication program manager.

Firing the laser required an additional 300 megajoules of energy pulled from the power grid, which highlights an important point about the NIF: It’s a scientific demonstration facility, not an optimized one.

“The laser wasn’t designed to be efficient,” said Mark Herrmann, LLNL Weapons, Physics and Design program director. “The laser was designed to give us as much juice as possible to make these incredible conditions possible.”

The NIF is more than 20 years old, and some of its technology dates back to the 1980s.

New laser architectures, target fabrication methods, materials, computation and simulations, and machine learning have federal officials optimistic the U.S. can achieve President Biden’s goal of a commercial fusion reactor within the decade.

DOE invested $50 million in a public-private partnership in September around fusion pilot power plant designs, but Budil said such a plant is likely still four decades away without “concerted effort and investment” on the technology side.

The private sector invested $3 billion in fusion research last year, and DOE is partnering with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to map out a vision for commercial fusion with zero-carbon energy powering homes, cars and heavy industry.

To its credit, the Biden administration proposed the biggest research and development budget in U.S. history, and recent investments enabled LLNL’s latest achievement.

“I think this is an amazing example of the power of America’s research and development enterprise,” said OSTP Director Arati Prabhakar.

The post Machine-learning models predicted ignition in fusion breakthrough experiment appeared first on FedScoop.

Prabhakar‘s confirmation came in a largely party-line vote of 56-40 with 10 Republicans voting in favor; Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., voting against; and four senators not voting.

Senators urged Prabhakar, who previously served as director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to coordinate agencies’ competing emerging technology priorities during her nomination hearing July 20.

President Biden nominated Prabhakar for the post on June 21 to replace Acting Director Alondra Nelson, who filled the vacancy left by Eric Lander when he resigned over disrespecting and demeaning staff and women, in particular, according to multiple staffers’ accounts.

“The historic bipartisan confirmation of Arati Prabhakar is a testament to her sterling track record of leadership and innovation stewardship, as well as her extensive expertise in science and technology policy,” Nelson said in a statement. “We are thrilled to welcome her to OSTP and begin a bright new chapter.”

Prabhakar joins OSTP at a time when the Biden administration is prioritizing investments in scientific research and development, an equitable STEM ecosystem, climate and energy solutions, U.S. competitiveness in emerging technologies, and economic security.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was among several Republicans who challenged Prabhakar’s lukewarmness to natural gas — citing it as the chief reason for reduced carbon emissions — during her nomination hearings and voted against her. Prabhakar acknowledged the shift away from coal to natural gas played the “biggest role” in electricity decarbonization to date but that the benefit was somewhat offset by the leakage of methane, which needs to be contained, into the atmosphere from its combustion.

Prabhakar was a proponent of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, parts of which were included in the recently signed CHIPS and Science Act, including a provision allowing her to now establish a working group coordinating activities in key technology areas like artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

She also believes fundamental research should be conducted openly for the benefit of the research community, while product development and applied work protected from foreign competitors like China.

The post Arati Prabhakar confirmed as White House Office of Science and Tech Policy director appeared first on FedScoop.

Wegrzyn, who will start in mid-October, is tasked with shaping ARPA-H‘s research portfolio to develop biomedical innovations preventing, detecting and treating persistent diseases — namely cancer.

She will be the first leader of the health R&D agency, which was proposed formally by President Biden during his March State of the Union address.

The 21st Century Cures Act of 2016 initially funded the Cancer Moonshot, advancing new areas of research, and Biden announced the next phase to start 2022 with the goal of cutting the death rate in half within 25 years. Biden created ARPA-H in March to attract diverse biomedical and health research talent across sectors and form public-private partnerships leading to more impactful, accessible treatments for cancer and other diseases.

The announcement takes place on the 60th anniversary of President Kennedy’s own Moonshot speech and follows the appointment of a number of senior women to leadership roles across federal agencies. Wegrzyn previously worked at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, while Biden’s choice for Office of Science and Technology Policy director, Arati Prabhakar, had served as director of both DARPA and the National Institute for Standards and Technology.

“I have seen firsthand the tremendous expertise and energy the U.S. biomedical and biotechnological enterprise can bring to solve some of the toughest health challenges,” Wegrzyn said in a statement. “ARPA-H will create the transformative and collaborative space that is required to support the next generation of moonshots for health, not only for complex diseases like cancer, but also systemic barriers like supply chain gaps and equitable access to breakthrough technologies and cures for everyone.”

Wegrzyn is currently vice president of business development at Ginkgo Bioworks and head of innovation at Concentric by Ginkgo, roles which involve using synthetic biology to outpace infectious diseases like COVID-19 through biomanufacturing, vaccine development and biosurveillance of pathogens.

Before that Wegrzyn was program manager in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office, where she received the Superior Public Service Medal for her work enhancing biosecurity, promoting public health and supporting the domestic bioeconomy.

Wegrzyn also sat on the National Academies of Science Board on Army Research and Development, as well as scientific advisory boards for Revive & Restore, the Air Force Research Labs, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and the Innovative Genomics Institute. 

The post White House proposes biotech specialist as inaugural ARPA-H director appeared first on FedScoop.

Senators urged Prabhakar, who previously served as director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to coordinate agencies’ competing emerging technology priorities during her nomination hearing July 20.

Her proposed appointment will now proceed to the Senate floor for a simple majority vote.

President Biden nominated Prabhakar for the post on June 21 to replace Acting Director Alondra Nelson, who filled the vacancy left by Eric Lander when he resigned over disrespecting and demeaning staff and women, in particular, according to multiple staffers’ accounts.

“While I am happy to see another accomplished woman at the forefront of the federal government’s scientific community, I am just as heartened by her commitment to put people at OSTP first, and I am pleased to support her nomination,” said committee chair Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., ahead of the vote. “If confirmed, she will be tasked with elevating OSTP’s role to ensure the U.S. remain a global leader in STEM, increasing investments in R&D, promoting greater diversity in the sciences, improving our weather forecasting capabilities, and protecting our scientific research.”

Prabhakar expressed hope the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) would be made law — allowing her to establish a working group coordinating activities in key technology areas like artificial intelligence and quantum computing — at her nomination hearing.

She also said fundamental research should be conducted openly for the benefit of the research community, while product development and applied work protected from foreign competitors like China.

USICA would also require agencies to submit comprehensive science and technology strategies.

“One thing I want to do is respect and honor those different missions, and then I want to knock down barriers to help those different parts of our federal R&D enterprise achieve those missions,” Prabhakar said at her nomination hearing. “And I want to knit them together, so that they can do the things together that they can’t do separately.”

The post Senate committee waves through Prabhakar OSTP director nomination appeared first on FedScoop.