Dr. Edward Seidel
President
University of Wyoming
Seidel Testimony for Senate Committee
Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member Barrasso, and members of the Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the role and programs of the Department ofEnergy’s Office of Science.
My role. I am honored to testify today as perhaps the University of Wyoming’s first representative to thiscommittee. I will do my best to represent the broadest scientific interests of the nation and ouruniversities across the country, including those in rural areas who have much to contribute to the national
science, technology, and innovation ecosystem. As a practicing astrophysicist, I have had the honor toserve in roles at high levels in the national scientific enterprise. For example serving as National Science
Foundation (NSF) Assistant Director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, where in partnership with
the Office of Science we brought the LSST Telescope to life, or as Director of the National Center for
Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where I oversaw thelargest computing facility on a university campus, or as a member of Argonne National Laboratory’s Boardof Governors where I helped steward one the Office of Science’s 10 national labs (out of 17 DOE labs intotal), which are truly crown jewels in the nation’s scientific enterprise. And I have been VP for Economic
Development and Innovation at the University of Illinois, so I think every day about how our universities
and the national science establishment can better drive innovation for the US economy.
A year ago I was given the honor to serve as the 28th President of the University of Wyoming which was
founded in 1886 when Wyoming was still a territory and retains a frontier spirit. I have taken on this rolewith energy and enthusiasm. In this new role I can have a different kind of impact in a rural state which,like many such regions, has an enormous amount to contribute; collectively rural America offers many
new opportunities for partnerships with the Department of Energy (DOE) in research, in workforce
development, and in national innovation and economic development.
It is with both these national and regional perspectives that I testify today.
Strength of American science ecosystem and needed enhancements. I would like to start by stressing
the importance of the vibrant and complementary scientific and innovation ecosystem provided by not
only the DOE and its many parts, including the Office of Science, but very importantly, organizations suchas the NSF, NASA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Institute of
Education Sciences (IES), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA),
the Department of Commerce (DOC) and other agencies that support scientific research, education, andinnovation across the country. These different agencies, each with a different orientation, complimentary
approach, and distinct mission, come together to support the strongest scientific capacity in the world. It
is essential to the health and competitiveness of our nation that these agencies continue to bestrengthened, and coordinated as they are by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), theNetworking and Information Technology Research and Development Program (NITRD), and otherorganizations.

However, we cannot take US scientific leadership for granted. Indeed, we are on the verge of not only
losing our lead in science, but very importantly, in related technology, economic development, andnational defense areas. Other nations, notably China, but also others in Asia and Europe, are investingheavily in science and technology, including related education and workforce efforts, and importantly, thescientific infrastructure needed to support it. In many cases, competing national science and technology
programs are strongly linked, and deeply coupled to efforts to commercialize for economic might (andsurely for defense as well).
US science efforts must similarly receive new investments in research, education, and infrastructure, andbe more strongly linked to efforts in technology and innovation. The continuum of effort from discovery
to technological and economic innovation must be tightly connected, with basic science ready to drive
technology at any point in its development. This must be the result of purposeful planning andprogramming, not serendipity. The DOE, particularly with its national labs, is well poised to do exactly this,but needs additional support to do so.
To these ends, I strongly support recent efforts in Congress to grow this science and technology
ecosystem, and to couple it more closely to innovation, creating in effect what is a national innovation
infrastructure. The recent US Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), passed by the Senate this summer,
and the parallel efforts in the House (NSF for the Future and DOE Science for the Future Acts), propose atectonic shift in science, technology and innovation funding that aims precisely to support and further
develop this entire ecosystem from discovery-based basic science through technology and innovation todrive American competitiveness. The many parts of USICA further support the diverse federal ecosystem
of science and technology agencies, aiming to greatly strengthen key areas of science that drive
technology, and further, create much more support for innovation that will lead directly to economic
development. Among other provisions, these acts increase foundational basic science at agencies such as
NSF and DOE, which is needed to drive technology development; they better couple science to technology
and innovation (e.g., adding a technology directorate to NSF or creating a targeted effort to enhance
critical industries, such as microelectronics, important to the global technology leadership). Further, they
provide funding for technology-based innovation hubs for continued innovation in the future (e.g.,through the Department of Commerce in USICA). It is essential that the Senate and House reachagreement on legislation on science and technology; other nations are not waiting while the USA considers
different approaches.
It is also essential, as I discuss below, that rural areas are not excluded in these activities; indeed, theyshould be embraced as they have assets that contribute unique strengths to advance research andinnovation in ways that other regions cannot. USICA specifically has provisions for rural states to be able
to compete effectively for such funds; I urge that such provisions be kept in the final bill that emerges.
Not only are various federal agencies and national labs poised to move quickly to roll out programs withsuch funding, but universities across the nation are also hungry, ready, and further positioning themselves
for such funding and to become stronger engines of innovation for their regions and for the nation. Driven
by similar motivations as USICA, my own University of Wyoming has proposed a major restructuring of its
academic programs, including creating new cross-campus structures powering all-in-university
approaches to research, education and innovation, including a new School of Computing and a new Center
for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Under this proposal, all students, regardless of major, will be able
to gain skills in digital literacy and innovation and entrepreneurship to grow a new, 21st century economy;

faculty from the arts and social sciences to engineering and life sciences, will be able to work in neworganizational structures, and with companies, to attack grand challenges such as those supported by the
DOE. We have also come together with our seven community colleges to form a new Wyoming Innovation
Partnership to align all higher education across the state, as well as schools and corporate partners, todrive the state’s future economy. And our entire EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive
Research) region1, including the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, is forming a Rural Mountain
West Innovation Consortium, bringing our considerable regional assets to bear on our workforce andeconomy, to create a science and technology based distributed, regional innovation hub that willcontribute significantly to our states’ and the nation’s economic vitality.
Similar efforts are underway across the nation, including my former backyard of Illinois, that has createda statewide Illinois Innovation Network of all public higher education, led by the University of Illinois, alongwith the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Argonne National Laboratory, and an array ofcorporate partners that will all have a common home in the Discovery Partners Institute in Chicago.
In all the combined national academic and corporate enterprise is ready to work with national labs andother parts of the science and technology enterprise to innovate and drive our economy forward as wecompete with formidable forces in China and elsewhere around the world.
Enhancing strengths of the DOE Office of Science. Within this framework, the Office of Science underpinsa large and very important fraction of the national scientific enterprise, playing an incredible role inmaking the US scientific establishment the strongest in the world. This, in turn, has added significantly tothe national defense and has helped provide the foundation for innovation that has made our economy
the strongest in the world. While my colleagues will surely testify on the many specific strengths of the
Office of Science, including centrally its national labs and their user facilities, I would nonetheless like tohighlight examples of what I see as cornerstones to anchor the scientific, technology, and innovationenterprise for the future.
Unique among these strengths, and a top priority among needs for continued increases in funding, are
DOE’s unparalleled advanced computing programs. Support for advanced computing in all its forms(exascale computing hardware and associated software and science teams that will utilize it; the growthof novel Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data approaches that are revolutionizing science and impacting
society alike; computational mathematics; quantum computing; and more) is essential for advances in allareas of science. Without significant investment in these technologies, all areas of science suffer; likewise,significant investment in a broad computing agenda is a necessary investment in all of science. Computing
is and must continue to be a centerpiece in DOE’s strategy for current science efforts, as is support for the
next generation of computing technologies to come, including importantly quantum computing. Planningand investment for future generations of computing technologies and their applications must continue,
just as current exascale, AI, big data, novel quantum computing approaches are deployed now to support
current generation science applications.
For example, the LSST telescope, a deep interagency collaboration between the NSF and the Office of
Science, is “more silicon than steel”. The telescope itself is essentially a peripheral to the massive
computing environment needed to support the science. Among DOE Labs it is a collaboration between
Stanford National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), FermiLab, Lawrence Berkeley, Brookhaven, and Argonne
1

I note that 15 of 20 members of this committee represent EPSCoR jurisdictions.

National Labs. Perched atop a mountain in Chile, when operational its DOE-built 3 Gigapixel camera will
make unprecedented images of the sky, that are sent over optical networks to the US where they are
digitally processed within seconds and served to thousands of collaborators. But even more exciting, every
few minutes it will take an image, move to its next position, create another image, and then on to thenext, robotically scanning the entire southern half of the universe every three days. Then, it starts overagain. Every night, as many as a million new events will be discovered as stars explode and black holes
collide; over a decade it will produce a movie of the universe, hundreds of petabytes in size, driving a newscientific revolution. Specific purpose-built computing environments are required to analyze the data inreal time using advanced AI techniques to instantly alert astronomers, physicists---and the public---who
have other instruments, for example gravitational wave detectors, to observe the same events throughother means, anchoring the new and revolutionary field of “multi-messenger astronomy” that has been
decades in the making.
Likewise, the planned upgrade to Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source will shine a light of unprecedented
intensity with hard x-rays, providing new insights into the structure of materials and biological processes
that cannot be obtained any other way. Its detectors will provide data at rates that, again, require
advances in the highest end computing and networking to handle the data streams never seen in such alaboratory. Beamlines for different science domains and industry alike will serve communities across thenation and the world for revolutionary advances in materials and biological sciences, while also advancing
innovation and economic development.
In another example, of hundreds I could provide, Argonne’s Joint Center for Energy Storage Research(JCESR) is a leading international center for advances in energy storage systems that will power next
generation electric vehicles and store energy as national power grids are diversified from coal and hydropower to include solar, wind and other sources of power. Here too, advances in computing accelerate thedevelopment of new materials, for example using the highest end petascale and soon exascale machines
to simulate every atom in a material or using advanced AI techniques to predict behavior of materials thatcan be tested by a lab to improve efficiency of new batteries needed to power the nation.
I have barely scratched the surface of how the Office of Science is essential to advancing the nation. Its
programs in areas ranging from materials to environmental science impact virtually every area of researchand innovation needed to address the nation’s energy needs, and to steward its precious natural
resources from water to rare earth minerals, at a time of fierce international competition. It is one of themost important assets in the US to keep America competitive in an uncertain and profoundly changing
world.
However, this is not a time to rest on our laurels. Challenges to US leadership are extraordinary, unlike
any time in our recent history. Stronger efforts are required, not only via an “all-in-government” approachacross DOE and other agencies, but in deep partnerships with academia and industry with enhanced
attention and funding to support more comprehensive public-private partnerships. Recommendations forsuch activities abound; the recent Council on Competitiveness report on “Competing in the New
Economy” recommends specifically expanding formal DOE Lab missions to encompass economic
competitiveness. Labs are already working in these directions. Oak Ridge National Lab’s quantum
technology hub and Chicago’s Quantum Exchange, with Argonne National Lab, FermiLab, and aconsortium of leading universities and companies, are two examples of what is already happening. Butthese examples are just a start of enhanced economic competitiveness efforts that need to be further
cultivated and supported.
Opportunities for rural America and science itself. Many of the best-known examples of science andinnovation efforts come from urban areas. What opportunities then do states like Wyoming, and otherrural parts of the nation, bring to the Office of Science, and more broadly, to the entire federal science,technology, and innovation ecosystem? After my first year in Wyoming, I have learned much that I would
like to share with the committee. First and foremost, great talent resides everywhere, in every corner of
Wyoming, and in every state in the nation (and in other nations, where it is being very well supported!).
Robert Rathburn Wilson, a physicist, a sculptor and architect, a key member of the Manhattan project,
the founding Director of FermiLab and prominent leader of the 20th century scientific enterprise, grew up
on cattle ranches near Frontier, Wyoming (and he brought the frontier spirit to FermiLab, introducing aherd of American Bison in the restored prairie within the accelerator ring, inspiring me as a grad student
there in 1981). This same talent and spirit is found in Wyoming today. A few months ago I had theopportunity to visit a high school in the town of Ten Sleep, a school small enough that senior officials fromthe University of Wyoming almost outnumbered the graduating seniors. I was introduced as an
astrophysicist, and was greeted by an enthusiastic female student who excitedly raised her handexclaiming “I want to be an astrophysicist—one who studies black holes just like you!” In Wyoming, suchtalent is combined with our proud cowboy culture filled with grit, determination and resilience in the faceof hardships. Such combinations of talent and culture are just what the nation needs to compete! We arealso a proud home for Native American tribes and a rapidly growing Hispanic population, further providing
a diversity of cultures that drives innovation.
Our natural and environmental assets are virtually unmatched. We have some of the largest deposits ofprecious minerals and rare earths, and high abundances of uranium, lithium, and helium. Animal
migration paths of ungulates such as mule deer are extraordinary examples of learned animal behavior tosurvive in a harsh world. Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks are unique-in-the-world
ecosystems, tremendous laboratories for understanding our natural environment. Our national forests
absorb significant carbon dioxide, but wildfires, relentlessly increasing with drought as our world warms,
cause releases of carbon dioxide and pollute the air, leading to health hazards that can spread literally
thousands of miles. Water from Wyoming is essential for the west; snowmelt from the Tetons support
agriculture in Idaho and beyond. Even more, a significant fraction of the western water supply comes from
Wyoming. Spring snowmelt in Wyoming flows into the Colorado River, equaling roughly half the annual
allocation from the river to the 18 million people in the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California(including LA). In June alone, Wyoming provides nearly three times as much water as Phoenix receives
annually. Future climate scenarios would reduce our snowpack, and therefore June flows, by 66-83% by
the end of the century, depending upon the degree of carbon mitigation. The change in June alone isenough to require each of the 18 million people in LA area to go for 3-4 days without any water or torequire the entire City of Phoenix (and others) to be permanently disconnected from the Colorado Riversystem.
Clearly there is much overlap with DOE’s Office of Science mission, and clearly deeper partnerships
between our university---and others in rural and EPSCoR regions---and national labs would be mutually
beneficial. EPSCoR regions have vital research programs and unique assets and strengths to bring to thetable. Indeed, our faculty are now having regular scientific discussions with Argonne National Lab, PacificNorthwest National Lab, and other labs on these topics to prepare for our future collaborations. Lengthy

lists of research topics that excite the lab staff and faculty are being developed. To help support suchactivities, I recommend specifically that more representation from EPSCoR state university faculty be
added to DOE Office of Science Advisory Committees.
But just as environmental issues do not respect political or state boundaries, the science problems they
drive are not contained in any single agency. Such problems require cooperation between federal
agencies with different approaches and assets that all contribute uniquely to solutions needed by all. For
example, Cheyenne, Wyoming is home to the supercomputing facilities of NSF’s National Center for
Atmospheric Science (NCAR). The “NCAR Wyoming Supercomputing Center” (NWSC) is a state-of-the-art
facility that serves primarily atmospheric science research. But NWSC has ample unused capacity, andcould be a home for a multi-agency approach to environmental science that could serve DOE, NSF, USGS,
and other related agencies. Massive, shared datasets could be co-located with advanced computing
facilities that leverage DOE’s exascale program for a unique and coordinated attack from multiple agencies
on such environmental problems critical to the nation’s future.
Just as importantly, such an enhanced computing environment could be a regional facility to serve as a
hub for economic development, corporate partnerships, and education and workforce development,
across Wyoming, and across the rural mountain west. It could be an important anchor for the entire
region’s new innovation economy that USICA and its companion bills in the House aim to support. I
strongly urge the committee to examine such possibilities as part of the national innovation infrastructure
foreseen by USICA and advocated for by organizations such as the Council on Competitiveness.
While I have focused on Wyoming in this discussion, it is representative of rural parts of the nation andworld. The problems we face are like those in many rural parts of the nation; solutions found here may
be replicated elsewhere. Of all the problems faced, the development of the workforce and the pivot of
the economy are central to rural America’s, and to the nation’s future. The EPSCoR program of DOE and
NSF is a major tool to build the education and research capacity of states like Wyoming. But I would urge
creation of new mechanisms for even deeper partnerships with the DOE Office of Science, particularly its
national labs, around research, education, and innovation programs to grow our tech-savvy workforce
and our economies. While we provide unique assets of importance to DOE and the nation, so that better
solutions to our national problems may be found, we also have special needs. The digital divide is growing
as our economies fall further behind other parts of the country; nearly 70% of University of Wyoming
graduates leave the state. Similar problems are faced across our region. Our rural areas must not only
modernize their educational opportunities but also grow their economies. Stronger partnerships with the
DOE and its labs, for example along the directions outlined in USICA, with the creation of distributed
technology-based innovation hubs, will have tremendous impact in rural regions like ours, helping to growour economies and retain and attract more talent. Just as importantly, such investments will pay
extraordinary scientific, educational, and economic dividends back to the DOE Office of Science, and to
the entire nation.
Summary. In summary, the Office of Science is an extraordinary national asset with extraordinary impact
on the nation. But this impact can, and needs to be, enhanced. Its efforts in advanced computing and its
applications must be continued and strengthened as a key element of the ongoing modernization of ournational scientific and innovation infrastructure. Large scale public private partnerships can be further
developed and strengthened, particularly in the fields that will determine global economic leadership andnational security. This national effort, needed to compete in the global economy, must encompass theassets from universities, national labs, and industry. Such efforts require contributions not only from the
Office of Science, but from the entire federal, academic and private sector components, each withdifferent approaches and strengths. This must include rural regions of America, with their unique assets,
culture, and talent base, in order for our national efforts to succeed in this global competition.
I want to thank you for your time, and for inviting me to testify.