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A REVIEW OF THE NETWORKING AND 

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH 

AND DEVELOPMENT (NITRD) PROGRAM 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

October 28, 2015 

Serial No. 114–46 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY K. WEBER, Texas 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan 

STEVE KNIGHT, California 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

GARY PALMER, Alabama 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DARIN LAHOOD, Illinois 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts 

DON S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

MARK TAKANO, California 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

HON. BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan 

BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas 

DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington 

GARY PALMER, Alabama 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

October 28, 2015 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Barbara Comstock, Chairwoman, Subcommittee 

on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, 

U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................................ 10 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 13 

Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Minority Member, 

Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, 

and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................... 13 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 15 

Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 18 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 20 

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .... 23 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 24 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Keith Marzullo, Director, National Coordination Office, The Networking 

and Information Technology Research and Development Program 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 26 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 29 

Dr. Gregory D. Hager, Mandell Bellmore Professor, Department of Computer 

Science, Johns Hopkins University; Co-Chair, NITRD Working Group, The 

President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 41 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 44 

Dr. Edward Seidel, Director, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 54 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 56 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 65 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Keith Marzullo, Director, National Coordination Office, The Networking 

and Information Technology Research and Development Program ................. 78 

Dr. Gregory D. Hager, Mandell Bellmore Professor, Department of Computer 

Science, Johns Hopkins University; Co-Chair, NITRD Working Group, The 

President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology ............................. 102 

Dr. Edward Seidel, Director, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ........................................... 116 
Page

IV 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Statement submitted by Dr. Kenneth Ball, Dean, Volgenau School of Engineering, George Mason University ..................................................................... 132 
(1) 

A REVIEW OF THE NETWORKING 

AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (NITRD) 

PROGRAM 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Barbara Comstock [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 
2 

LAMAR S. SMITH. Texas 

CHAIRMAN 

ltongrcss of the 'llnitcd i)tatcs 

1!lou.sc of 'Rcprc.scntatioc.s COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

2321 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING 

WASHINGTON, OC 20515-6301 

12021225-0371 

www.Geief'l~e.llouse.gov 

Subcommittee on Research and Technology 

EOOlE BERNICE JOHNSON, Te>o:n$ 

RANKING MEMBER 

A Review of the Networking and Information Technology 

Research and Development (NITRD) Program 

Wednesday, October 28, 2015 

10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. 

2318 Rayburn House Office Building 

Dr. Keith Marzullo, Director, National Coordination Office, The Networking and Information 

Technology Research and Development Program (NITRD) 

Dr. Gregory D. Hager, Mandell Bellmore Professor, Department of Computer Science, Johns 

Hopkins University; Co-Chair, NITRD Working Group, The President's Council of Advisors on 

Science and Technology 

Dr, Edward Seidel, Director, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of 

Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 
3 

Purpose 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY SUBCOMMITTEE 

HEARING CHARTER 

A Review of the Networking and Information Technology 

Research and Development (NITRD) Program 

Wednesday, October 28, 2015 

10:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m. 

2318 Rayburn House Office Building 

On Wednesday, October 28, 2015, the Subcommittee on Research and Technology will 

hold a hearing to discuss the Networking and Information Technology Research and 

Development (NITRO) program, a crosscutting, multi-agency effort to coordinate federal 

research and development (R&D) funding for "revolutionary breakthrou~hs in advanced 

information technologies such as computing, networking, and software." The cross-agency 

budget request for NITRO is $4.09 billion in FY20 16.2 The hearing will also discuss the recent 

President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology's report on the NITRO program 

published in August 2015. 

Witnesses 

• Dr. Keith Marzullo, Director, National Coordination Office, The Networking and 

Information Technology Research and Development Program 

• Dr. Gregory D. Hager, Mandell Bellmore Professor, Department of Computer Science, 

Johns Hopkins University; Co-Chair, NITRO Working Group, The President's Council 

of Advisors on Science and Technology 

• Dr. Edward Seidel, Director, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, 

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

OVERVIEW 

The United States has been a world leader in networking and information technology 

(NIT). Federal support for research and development (R&D) in NIT originally stemmed from an 

interest in and the challenge of developing computers capable of addressing complex problems, 

primarily those focused on national security and high-end applications. Over the past few 

decades, federal spending for NIT R&D has encompassed a broad array of technologies, from 

digital libraries to cloud computing. The eventual commercial applications for such federallyfunded R&D have fundamentally changed the way modem-day Americans work and live. 

'See: https:llwww.nitrd.gov/about/about nitrd.aspx. 2 See: https:llwww .nitrd .gov/PUBS/20 16supplement/FY20 16NITRDSupplement -I nvestments.pdf. 
4 

Additionally, R&D in NIT provides a greater understanding of how to protect essential 

systems and networks that support fundamental sectors of our economy, from emergency 

communications and power grids to air-traffic control networks and national defense systems. 

NIT R&D works to prevent or minimize disruptions to critical information infrastructure, to 

protect public and private services, to detect and respond to threats while mitigating the severity 

of and assisting in the recovery from those threats. 

THE NITRD PROGRAM 

Background and Overview 

The High Performance Computing Act of 1991 (P .L. 1 02-194) authorized the precursor 

of the NITRO program, then called the High Performance Computing and Communications 

program, to accelerate progress in the advancement of computing and networking technologies 

and to support leading edge computational research in a range of science and engineering fields. 

The name of the program has since evolved to the Networking and Information 

Technology Research and Development (NITRO) program, and as required by the HighPerformance Computing Act of 1991 (P.L. 102-194), the Next Generation Internet Research Act 

of 1998 (P.L. I 05-305), and the America COMPETES (Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully 

Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science) Act of2007 (P.L. 110-69), the 

NITRO program provides a framework and mechanisms for coordination among the Federal 

agencies that support advanced information technology (IT) R&D and report IT research budgets 

across the federal budget. 3 

The NITRO program is the main source of federally funded work on advanced 

information technologies in networking, computing, and software, totaling an estimated $4.0 

billion in FY20 15 (with the National Science Foundation being the principal contributor with 

over $1.1 billion of that total). The NITRO program supports a number of research areas through 

its interagency coordination, including big data, cyber physical systems, cybersecurity, health 

technology, high performance computing, and large scale networking.4 

The National Coordinating Office 

The National Coordinating Office (NCO) was established in September 1992, and it 

supports the planning, coordination, budget, and assessment activities of the NITRO program. 5 

In addition, the NCO supports the National Science and Technology Council's Subcommittee on 

NITRO (the NITRO Subcommittee), which provides policy, program, and budget planning 

guidance for the NITRO Program and is composed of representatives from each of the 

participating agencies, OSTP, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the NC0.6 The 

3 Supplement to the President's Budget: FY 2016, The Networking and Information Technology Research and 

Development Program, February 2015, available at: 

https:/ /www .nitrd.gov /pubs/20 16supplement/FY20 16NlTRDSupp lement.pdf 4 Ibid. 

5 

Moloney Figliola, Patricia, "The Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development 

Program: Background, Funding, and Activities," Congressional Research Service, August 3, 2015, available at: 

http://www.crs.gov/reoorts/pdf/RL33586 

6 lbid. 

2 
5 

director of the NCO is amJoln!e:d by and reports to the Office of Science and Technology Policy 

(OSTP) director. 

program: 

3 
6 

Assessment of NITRD by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology 

(PCAST) 

Executive Order 13539 assigned the President's Council of Advisors on Science and 

Technology (PCAST) to periodically review the NITRD program. This past August, PCAST 

completed its most recent assessment ofNITRD and issued a report to the President and 

Congress, "Ensuring Leadership in Federally Funded Research and Development in Information 

Technology," which calls for "a refreshed R&D investment portfolio and coordination process 

given the pressing concerns of the IT ecosystem."7 

The PCAST report focuses on eight specific R&D areas including: cybersecurity, IT and 

health, big data and data-intensive computing, IT and the physical world, privacy protection, 

cyber-human systems, high capability computing, and foundational computing research. Since 

many of the Program Component Areas (PCAs) have gone largely unchanged since the midl990s, the report also calls for a modernized set of categories for IT R&D spending, and suggests 

updating those categories every five to six years. 8 

History of NITRO PCAs 

~998, HPCS II ASTA ll~~ln liT A Ill NREN I IBRHR 

I 

II FY 1997- KM FY 2000 !HECC I !HaGS I LSN IHCSIIETHR 

PCAo> 

beginning In FY2001 

~~ CSIA ~I LSN I SOP II HCSS II SEW 

I &A Ad-In M FY200$ 

Februafy 2012 

1 "Ens'_lring Lea.dership in ~ederally Funded Research and Development in Information Technology," President's 

Council of Advtsors on Sctence .and Technology, August 2015, available at: 

https://www. whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/micrositeslostp/PCAST/nitrd reoort aug 20 15.pdf 8 Ibid. 

4 
7 

·-2012 

Table 1 

Acronym Expansion 

ASTA-Advanced Software Technol<>sY HEC R&D- H;p End Coonputing 

and Alpitbms -and O.V.Iopmmt 

BRHR-Basie Rcseardl and H...., HPCS-IIip PmhrmonceCompuling 

Resou1= S)'Siem1l 

CSIA-Cyber Security and lnfilrmMion HuCS- Human Centmd Systems 

Assurance 

ETHR-Educalion. Traimng.and IITA-In_l_ 

Human Resou1= Technol<>sY and Applications 

HCI & IM- Human Comput<r LSN- Lasgc Scale -ing 

lnt ..... ion and lnf""""""" Manogement 

HCS- Hii!I>Confoden<eS)'Siem1l NREN -~ R.,.,.m,and 

Education N""""" 

HCSS- H;p Confldenee Software and PCA- Program Component Area 

S)'Siem1l 

HECC- Hip End Computing and SOP- Soft"11le Design and Produ<tivity 

c ... putation 

HEC I&A- Hip End Coonputing SEW-Social. e-...K:. and Wodfun:e 1-and Applicll!ions lmplicll!ions of IT and IT Wodfon:e 

Development 

Source: History of NITRO PCAs, NITRO Program. available at: https:l/ww\v mtrd gov/about!about nitrd/nitrd history/ne\•.:-pca-names.pdf 

To read the report and its recommendations in its entirety, please see: "Ensuring Leadership in 

Federally Funded Research and Development in Information Technology," President's Council 

of Advisors on Science and Technology, August 2015, available at: 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/PCAST/nitrd report aug 20 15.p 

.\![ 

5 
8 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. The Subcommittee on Research and 

Technology will come to order. 

Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of 

the Committee at any time. 

Welcome to today’s hearing entitled ‘‘A Review of the Networking 

and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) 

Program.’’ I now recognize myself for five minutes for an opening 

statement. 

I want to welcome everyone here today. The topic of this morning’s hearing, ‘‘A Review of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program’’, is important to our 

national security, global competitiveness, and technological innovation. This hearing will provide us with an updated overview of the 

program, and it will discuss the recent President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology report, also known as the PCAST 

report, on the NITRD Program published in August of 2015. 

The NITRD Program was originally authorized in 1991 in the 

High Performance Computing Act. It provides the primary mechanism by which the federal government coordinates this nation’s almost $4 billion of research and development on advanced information technologies in computing, networking, and software. Agencies 

who participate in the program include DHS, NASA, NIH, NIST, 

EPA, and the Department of Energy. 

Information technology is all around us in our day-to-day lives: 

on our smartphones, in our cars, and in our kitchens. It improves 

our way of life, even in ways that are not always as visible to us. 

As noted in the PCAST report, ‘‘information technology empowers 

scientific inquiry, space and Earth exploration, teaching and learning, consumer buying and selling, informed decision-making, national security, transportation, and advanced manufacturing.’’ 

R&D in information technology provides a greater understanding 

of how to protect essential systems and networks that support fundamental sectors of our economy, from emergency communications 

and power grids to air-traffic control networks and national defense 

systems. This kind of R&D works to prevent or minimize disruptions to critical information infrastructure, to protect public and 

private services, to detect and respond to threats while mitigating 

the severity of and assisting in the recovery from those threats in 

an effort to support a more stable and secure nation. 

As technology rapidly advances, the need for research and development continues to evolve. NITRD works to prevent duplicative 

and overlapping R&D efforts, thereby enabling more efficient use 

of government resources and taxpayer dollars. 

Executive Order 13539 assigned the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, or PCAST, to periodically review 

the NITRD Program. PCAST’s most recent assessment, which was 

published this past August, includes a number of recommendations. Those recommendations focus on eight specific R&D areas including, but not limited to: cybersecurity, IT and health, big data 

and data-intensive computing, and foundational computing research. 

Considering the significant increase in global interconnectedness 

enabled by the internet, and with it, increased cybersecurity attacks, I was glad to see that the PCAST report included rec-
9 

ommendations of how to improve the foundations of our cybersecurity.For example, one recommendation included in the report calls 

on the National Science Foundation to sponsor broad foundational 

research on methods to facilitate end-to-end construction of trustworthy systems, particularly for emerging application domains, and 

on ways to anticipate and defend against attacks. 

I look forward to today’s hearing, and I hope we are able to learn 

more about the current status of the NITRD Program and how we 

can continue improving the program. I am also looking forward to 

learning how industry is engaged in this program. As noted in the 

PCAST report, ‘‘today’s advances rest on a strong base of research 

and development created over many years of government and private investment. Because of these investments, the United States 

has a vibrant academia-industry-government ecosystem to support 

research and innovation in IT and to bring the results into practical use.’’ 

It is clear that focusing our investments on information technology research and development is important to our nation for a 

variety of reasons, including economic prosperity, national security, 

competitiveness, and quality of life. 

[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Comstock follows:] 
10 

Statement of Research Subcommittee Chairwoman Barbara Comstock 

Hearing on "A Review of the Networking and Information Technology Research and 

Development (NITRO) Program" 

Introductory Statement 

10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, October 28, 2015 

Good morning. I want to welcome everyone here today. The topic of this morning's 

hearing, A Review of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development 

Program. is important to our national security, global competitiveness and technological 

innovation. This hearing will provide us witb an updated overview of the program, and it will 

discuss the recent President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology's report, also 

known as the PCAST report, on the NITRD program published in August 2015. 

The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program, or 

NITRD, was originally authorized in 1991 in the High Performance Computing Act. 

NITRD provides the primary mechanism by which the federal government coordinates 

this nation's almost 4 billion dollars of research and development on advanced infonnation 

technologies in computing, networking, and software. Agencies who participate in the program 

include DHS, NASA, NIH, NIST, EPA, and the Department of Energy. 

Information technology is all around us in our day to day lives- on our smart phones, in 

our cars, and in our kitchens. It improves our way of life, even in ways that are not always as 

visible to us. As noted in the PCAST report, "information technology empowers scientific 
11 

inquiry, space and Earth exploration, teaching and learning, consumer buying and selling, 

informed decision-making, national security, transportation, [and] advanced manufacturing."' 

R&D in information technology provides a greater understanding of how to protect 

essential systems and networks that support fundamental sectors of our economy, from 

emergency communications and power grids to air-traffic control networks and national defense 

systems. This kind of R&D works to prevent or minimize disruptions to critical information 

infrastructure, to protect public and private services, to detect and respond to threats while 

mitigating the severity of and assisting in the recovery from those threats, in an effort to support 

a more stable and secure nation. 

As technology rapidly advances, the need for research and development continues to 

evolve. NITRD works to prevent duplicative and overlapping R&D efforts, thereby enabling 

more efficient use of government resources and taxpayer dollars. 

Executive Order 13539 assigned the President's Council of Advisors on Science and 

Technology, or "PCAST" to periodically review the NITRD program. PCAST's most recent 

assessment, which was published this past August, includes a number of recommendations. 

Those recommendations focus on eight specific R&D areas including, but not limited to: 

cybersecurity, IT and health, big data and data-intensive computing, and foundational computing 

research. 

1 "Ensuring Leadership in Federally Funded Research and Development in Information Technology;' President's Council of Advisors on Science 

and Technology, August 2015, available at: https. www. whilel!m~~?Y .~~~~s. gef?.Uih file~. mi~I9ilLt;~ Q.~m..Pi'.t\~T.Ditrd report aug 20! 5.odf 
12 

Considering the significant increase in global interconnectedness enabled by the Intemet, 

and with it, increased cybersecurity attacks, I was glad to see that the PCAST report included 

recommendations of how to improve the foundations of our eyberseeurity. 

For example, one recommendation included in the report calls on the National Science 

Foundation to sponsor broad foundational research on methods to facilitate end-to-end 

construction of trustworthy systems, particularly for emerging application domains, and on ways 

to anticipate and defend against attacks. 

I am excited for today's hearing, and I hope we are able to leam more about the current 

status of the NITRD program and how we can continue improving the program in order to 

promote continued technological leadership in the United States. I am also looking forward to 

leaming how industry is engaged in the NITRD program. As noted in the PCAST report, 

"today' s advances rest on a strong base of research and development (R&D) created over many 

years of government and private investment. Because ofthese investments, the United States has 

a vibrant academia-industry-govemment ecosystem to support research and innovation in IT and 

to bring the results into practical use."2 

It is clear that focusing our investments on infonnation technology research and 

development is important to our nation for a variety of reasons, including economic prosperity, 

national security, U.S. competitiveness, and quality oflife. I look forward to hearing from each 

of our witnesses on this important topic. Thank you for being here. 

2 lbid. 
13 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. And now I thank all witnesses for being 

here, and I will turn over the microphone and recognize my Ranking Member, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski, for his 

opening statement. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you and 

Chairman Smith for holding this hearing. 

I am certainly pleased that we’re once again planning to take up 

reauthorization legislation for the Networking and Information 

Technology R&D Program known as NITRD. The House, through 

this committee, has successfully passed a bipartisan reauthorization of the program in each of the past three Congresses, and each 

time the Senate has failed to follow suit. If we are going to move 

a bill to the President’s desk, each of us in this room will need to 

work harder on the necessary outreach to gather support. It’s been 

too long since the original High-Performance Computing Act of 

1991 has been updated with the current state of science and technology in the field, as well as the current operational and management needs of the program. 

Networking and information technology is changing more rapidly 

than any of us could have dreamed in 1991. Mosaic, the World 

Wide Web browser that first made the internet user-friendly, was 

created at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at 

the University Of Illinois in 1993 under a project funded thanks in 

large part to the HPC Act. Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, 

who was a leader of the Illinois team before launching his company, was quoted as saying, ‘‘if it had been left to private industry, 

it wouldn’t have happened, at least not until years later.’’ Dr. 

Andreessen’s statement is as relevant today as ever. Without question, the 1991 Act set the stage for a coordinated federal R&D 

strategy that has underpinned the U.S. leadership in NIT for the 

past 25 years. 

One reason, I believe, that we are having trouble getting an update through the Senate is that the private sector has not weighed 

in on the importance of NITRD. I understand that in the process 

of planning this hearing there was some difficulty identifying experts in industry at sufficiently high level with knowledge of the 

NITRD Program. Even the experts that were consulted had a hard 

time coming up with more names to reach out to. Given that federal investments in stet have applications across all sectors of our 

economy and at the ground level, NITRD involves many public-private partnerships, I find this troubling that we have not been able 

to get the private sector engaged here. 

The NITRD Program is a $4 billion investment covering every 

aspect of networking and information technology R&D, in addition 

to the computing infrastructure required to support R&D in every 

field of science and engineering. Four billion dollars is a large sum 

by any measure. However, NITRD covers so many areas of R&D, 

as the Chairwoman noted, and includes so much expensive but essential infrastructure, I fear we may be under-investing in many 

critical areas such as cybersecurity. 

I want to thank the witnesses for submitting detailed written 

testimony, and I will highlight just a few topics that I hope we can 

discuss this morning. In his testimony, Dr. Seidel, the current Director of NCSA, discusses the need for more coherence and coordi-
14 

nation around computing research infrastructure. When we talk 

about computing research infrastructure, we mean not just highperformance computing facilities such as Blue Waters, but also big 

data infrastructure, networking testbeds, observation systems, and 

more. I’d like to understand better how infrastructure is planned, 

coordinated, and categorized under the NITRD Program, and how 

the new National Strategic Computing Initiative fits in. 

On the topic of education and workforce, we have heard from 

countless experts that our IT workforce pipeline is not keeping up 

with the demand. When it comes to education and training, the 

federal role may be small compared to the state and private sector’s. However, PCAST made some specific recommendations for 

federal agencies that we may be able to take up in the NITRD legislation, so I hope we have the opportunity to discuss those recommendations further. 

I look forward to hearing from this morning’s expert panel. And 

with that, I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lipinski follows:] 
15 

Opening Statement 

Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL) 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Research & Technology 

House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

Committee Hearing: 

Review of the Networking and Information Technology R&D (NITRD) Program 

October 28, 2015 

Thank you Chairwoman Comstock for holding this hearing. I am certainly pleased that 

we are once again planning to take up reauthorization legislation for the Networking and 

Information Technology R&D Program- NITRD. The House, through this Committee, has 

successfully passed a bipartisan reauthorization of the program in each of the past 3 congresses 

and each time the Senate has failed to follow suit. If we are going to move a bill to the 

President's desk, each of us in this room will need to work harder on the necessary outreach to 

gather support. It's been too long since the original High Performance Computing Act of 1991 

has been updated with the current state of science and technology in the field, as well as the 

current operational and management needs of the Program. 

Networking and information technology is changing more rapidly than any of us could 

have dreamed in 1991. Mosaic, the World Wide Web browser that first made the Internet userfriendly, was created at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University 

of Illinois in 1993, under a project funded thanks in large part to the HPC Act. Netscape founder 

Marc Andreeson, who was a leader of the Illinois team before launching his company, was 

quoted as saying, "If it had been left to private industry, it wouldn't have happened, at least, not 

until years later." Dr. Andreeson's statement is as relevant today as ever. Without question, the 
16 

1991 Act set the stage for a coordinated federal R&D strategy that has underpinned U.S. 

leadership in NIT for the past 25 years. 

One reason, I believe, that we have had trouble getting an update through the Senate is 

that the private sector has not weighed in on the importance of NITRO. I understand that in the 

process of planning this hearing, there was some difficulty identifying experts in industry at a 

sufficiently high level with knowledge of the NITRO program. Even the experts that were 

consulted had a hard time coming up with more names to reach out to. Given that federal 

investments in NIT R&D have applications across all sectors of our economy, and that at the 

ground level, NITRO involves many public-private partnerships, I find this troubling. 

The NITRO Program is a $4 billion investment covering every aspect of networking and 

information technology R&D, in addition to the computing infrastructure required to support 

R&D in every field of science and engineering. $4 billion is a large sum by any measure. 

However, NITRO covers so many areas of R&D and includes so much expensive but essential 

infrastructure, I fear we may be underinvesting in many critical areas such as cybersecurity. 

I want to thank the witnesses for submitting detailed written testimony, and I will 

highlight just a few topics that I hope we can discuss this morning. In his testimony, Dr. Seidel, 

the current director ofNCSA, discusses the need for more coherence and coordination around 

computing research infrastructure. When we talk about computing research infrastructure, we 

mean not just high-performance computing facilities such as Blue Waters, but also big data 

infrastructure, networking test beds, observation systems, and more. I'd like to understand better 

how infrastructure is planned, coordinated, and categorized under the NITRO program, and how 

the new National Strategic Computing Initiative fits in. 
17 

On the topic of education and workforce, we have heard from countless experts that our 

IT workforce pipeline is not keeping up with the demand. When it comes to education and 

training, the federal role may be small compared to the state and private sector roles. However, 

PCAST made some specific recommendations for federal agencies that we may be able to take 

up in NITRD legislation, so I hope we have the opportunity to discuss those recommendations 

further. 

I look forward to hearing from this morning's expert panel. 
18 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski. 

I now recognize the Chairman of the full Committee, Mr. Smith. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Madam Chair. And let me say that 

I appreciate both your and the Ranking Member’s thoughtful comments today. 

Madam Chair, the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program that we review today, otherwise 

known as NITRD, oversees federal investment in fundamental research areas such as supercomputing, cybersecurity, big data, and 

cyber-physical systems. 

These research priorities help spur technologies that protect our 

country and grow our economy. For example, a cybersecurity attack 

is one of the greatest security challenges that America faces today. 

It threatens all of our federal agencies and even our private computer systems. This is just one area of federal R&D that the 

NITRD Program addresses. 

In the digital age, threats to our country’s computer networking 

systems constantly evolve. We must effectively coordinate R&D efforts in order to protect and improve cyber and data security nationwide. Better network security promotes U.S. competitiveness, 

enhances national security, and creates high-tech jobs. 

In fact, the most recent President’s Council of Advisors on 

Science and Technology report predicts that more than half of all 

new science, technology, engineering, and mathematics jobs will be 

related to information technology. 

A healthy and viable workforce, literate in all STEM subjects including computer science, is critical to American industries. Today, 

a variety of jobs in industries from banking to engineering to medicine require a familiarity with computer science. According to the 

Bureau of Labor Statistics, computing and mathematics will be one 

of the top ten fastest-growing major occupational groups from 2010 

to 2020, with a growth rate of four percent annually compared to 

one percent for all other industries. 

Encouraging innovation and technological advancements is a priority of the Science Committee and is important to high-tech communities across our country, including those in my district. 

The NITRD program focuses on research and development of 

new technologies that create more high-tech jobs in STEM fields. 

Technological innovation is what drives America’s economy and 

success. Since the invention of the world’s first supercomputer 50 

years ago, the United States has held a competitive advantage in 

the field of supercomputing. 

In fact, in Austin, Texas, we have seen great achievements in 

supercomputing. The Stampede supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas in Austin is 

the number one open-access supercomputer in the country. Stampede will be used by more than 1,000 scientists from the United 

States and around the world to solve problems that affect our daily 

lives. This is a tremendous accomplishment not only for the 

innovators at the University of Texas in Austin but also for all 

Americans. 

But to maintain this competitive advantage, we must continue to 

support the fundamental research and development that encour-
19 

ages innovation, particularly the creation and design of supercomputers and the applications those computers support. 

It has been two years since this Committee last reviewed the 

NITRD Program and passed our Committee’s bill to reauthorize 

the program. The Advanced—the Advancing America’s Networking 

and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 

2013 provided for the coordinated R&D efforts necessary to improve cyber and data security nationwide. Our legislation also authorized the participating agencies to support large-scale, longterm, interdisciplinary research. Unfortunately, that legislation 

stalled in the Senate. 

I want to thank our witnesses today for testifying on the NITRD 

program and appreciate their testimony on the current state of the 

program, recommendations for how to improve the program, and 

future R&D priorities. 

And I will yield back. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:] 
20 

Statement of Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith 

Research and Technology Subcommittee Hearing on 

A Review of the Networking and Information Technology Research and 

Development (NITRO) Program 

10:00 a.m. Wednesday, October 28, 2015 

Good morning. The Networking and Information Technology 

Research and Development program that we review today- otherwise 

known as NITRO oversees federal investment in fundamental research 

areas such as supercomputing, cybersecurity, big data, and cyber 

physical systems. 

These research priorities help spur technologies that protect our 

country and grow our economy. 

For example, a cybersecurity attack is one of the greatest security 

challenges that America faces today. It threatens all of our federal 

agencies and even our private computer systems. This is just one area of 

federal R&D that the NITRO program addresses. 

In the digital age, threats to our country's computer networking 

systems constantly evolve. We must effectively coordinate R&D efforts in 

order to protect and improve cyber and data security nationwide. Better 

network security promotes U.S. competitiveness, enhances national 

security and creates high-tech jobs. 

In fact, the most recent President's Council of Advisors on Science 

and Technology report predicts that more than half of all new science, 

technology, engineering, and mathematics jobs will be related to 

information technology. 

1 
21 

A healthy and viable workforce, literate in all STEM subjects 

including computer science, is critical to American industries. Today, a 

variety of jobs in industries from banking to engineering to medicine 

require a familiarity with computer science. 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Computing and 

Mathematics will be one of the top ten fastest growing major occupational 

groups from 2010 to 2020, with a growth rate of four percent annually 

compared to one percent for all other industries. 

Encouraging innovation and technological advancements is a 

priority of the Science Committee and is important to high-tech 

communities across our country, including those in my district. 

The NITRO program focuses on research and development of new 

technologies that create more high-tech jobs in STEM fields. 

Technological innovation is what drives America's economy and success. 

Since the invention of the world's first supercomputer 50 years ago, 

the United States has held a competitive advantage in the field of 

supercomputing. 

In fact, in Austin, Texas, we have seen great achievements in 

supercomputing. The Stampede supercomputer at the Texas Advanced 

Computing Center at the University of Texas in Austin is the number one 

open access supercomputer in the country. 

Stampede will be used by more than 1 ,000 scientists from the 

United States and around the world to solve problems that affect our daily 

2 
22 

lives. This is a tremendous accomplishment not only for the innovators at 

the University of Texas in Austin but also for all Americans. 

But to maintain this competitive advantage, we must continue to 

support the fundamental research and development that encourages 

innovation, particularly the creation and design of supercomputers and the 

applications those computers support. 

It has been two years since this Committee last reviewed the 

NITRO program and passed our Committee's bill to reauthorize the 

program. 

The Advancing America's Networking and Information Technology 

Research and Development Act of 2013 provided for the coordinated R&D 

efforts necessary to improve cyber and data security nationwide. 

Our legislation also authorized the participating agencies to support 

large-scale, long-term, interdisciplinary research. 

Unfortunately, that legislation stalled in the Senate. 

I thank our witnesses today for testifying on the NITRO program. I 

look forward to their testimony on the current state of the program, 

recommendations for how to improve the program, and future R&D 

priorities. 

### 

3 
23 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

I now recognize the Ranking Member of the Full Committee for 

a statement, Ms. Johnson. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. I want to thank you, Chairwoman Comstock, for holding this important hearing. 

The Science, Space, and Technology Committee played a central 

role in the development of the High-Performance Computing Act of 

1991, the bill that set the stage for 25 years of scientific and technological progress under the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development, or NITRD. 

Advances in networking and information technology are a key 

driver of our economy, our national security, and our well-being. 

NITRD contributes to increased productivity in existing industries 

and opens the door for information of new ones. We’ve all heard 

how Google grew out of a basic research project funded by the National Science Foundation. NITRD protects our brave men and 

women in the military by improving intelligence gathering and 

sharing and providing them with more effective and safer equipment. NITRD has improved healthcare and saved countless lives by 

contributing to advanced diagnostic and surgical tools, distance 

medicine, and improved medical research. 

NIT is truly pervasive in our society. Even those of us who lived 

most of our lives before the advent of wireless technology don’t 

know how we would live today without the devices we carry around 

in our pockets. 

In their 2015 review of the NITRD Program, the President’s 

Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, PCAST, expressed 

concern that researchers today face difficulty getting funded for 

riskier, more speculative long-term investigations. According to the 

PCAST report, funding pressures are pushing scientists to choose 

more short-term problem-solving research. I worry deeply about the 

impact of that and declining budgets across our science and technology enterprise. I hope that any budget deal being worked out 

now and in the future will allow for increased investments in all 

fields of science and engineering. That was just one of many recommendations from PCAST and other experts. 

Today’s hearing is an important opportunity for committee members to hear from experts about key issues in NITRD reauthorization. Our committee has tried several times to update and reauthorize NITRD legislation so that it continues to push the boundaries of information technology, science and technology, and maximizes opportunities for coordination, collaboration, and strategic 

planning among the many NITRD member agencies. 

I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the 

aisle to develop a good bill and move it through the House. Perhaps 

we will have more success this time around in the Senate. 

And I want to thank the excellent panel for being here today, 

and I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 
24 

Research & Technology Subcomminee Hearing 

Review of the Networking and Information Technology R&D Program 

October 28, 2015 

Opening Statement of Ranking Member Johnson 

I want to thank Chairwoman Comstock for holding this important hearing. The Science, Space, 

and Technology Committee played a central role in the development of the High Performance 

Computing Act of 1991, the bill that set the stage for 25 years of scientific and technological 

progress under the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development, or 

NITRO, Program. 

Advances in networking and information technology are a key driver of our economy, our 

national security, and our wellbeing. NIT R&D contributes to increased productivity in existing 

industries and opens the door for the formation of new ones. We've all heard how Google grew 

out of a basic research project funded by the National Science Foundation. NIT R&D protects 

our brave men and women in the military by improving intelligence gathering and sharing and 

providing them with more effective and safer equipment. NIT R&D has improved health care 

and saved countless lives by contributing to advanced diagnostic and surgical tools, distance 

medicine, and improved medical research. 

NIT is truly pervasive in our society. Even those of us who lived most of our lives before the 

advent of wireless technology don't know how we would live today without the devices we carry 

around in our pockets. 

In their 2015 review of the NITRO Program, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and 

Technology, or PCAST, expressed concern that researchers today face difficulty getting funded 

for riskier, more speculative long-term investigations. According to the PCAST report, funding 

pressures are pushing scientists to choose more short-term, problem-solving research. I worry 

deeply about the impact of flat and declining budgets across our science and technology 

enterprise. I hope that any budget deal being worked out now, and in the future, will allow for 

increased investments in all fields of science and engineering. 

That was just one of many recommendations from PCAST and other experts. Today's hearing is 

an important opportunity for Committee Members to hear from the experts about key issues for 

NITRO reauthorization. Our Committee has tried several times to update and reauthorize the 

NITRO legislation so that it continues to push the boundaries of information technology science 

and technology and maximizes opportunities for coordination, collaboration, and strategic 

planning among the many NITRO member agencies. I look forward to working with my 
25 

colleagues on both sides of the aisle to develop a good bill and move it through the House. 

Perhaps we will have more success this time around in the Senate. 

I thank the excellent panel for being here today. I yield back. 
26 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. 

Now, let me introduce our witnesses. Our first witness today is 

Dr. Keith Marzullo. Dr. Marzullo currently serves as the Director 

of the Federal Networking and Information Technology Research 

and Development National Coordination Office. He also serves as 

the Co-Chair of NITRD Subcommittee of the National Science and 

Technology Council Committee on Technology, where he oversees 

the operations and activities of the NITRD program. 

Dr. Marzullo earned his bachelor’s degree in physics at Occidental College, his master’s degree in applied physics at Stanford 

University, and received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from 

Stanford University, where he developed the Xerox Research Internet Clock Synchronization protocol, one of the first practical faulttolerant protocols for keeping widely distributed clocks synchronized with each other. Wow. 

Dr. Gregory Hager is the Mandell Bellmore Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University. He joined the Department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins in 1999 and has 

served as the Deputy Director of the NSF Engineering Research 

Center for Surgical Systems and Technology, and as Chair of Computer Science from 2010 to 2015. 

Dr. Hager earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science at Luther College, and his master’s degree and Ph.D. 

in computer science at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Dr. Edward Seidel, our third and final witness, is the Director 

of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. In addition to leading the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, he is a founder Professor in the University of Illinois Department of Physics and a Professor in the Department of Astronomy. 

Dr. Seidel earned his bachelor’s in mathematics and physics at 

the College of William and Mary, his master’s degree in physics at 

the University of Pennsylvania, and his doctorate in relativistic astrophysics at Yale University. 

I now recognize Dr. Marzullo for five minutes to present his testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. KEITH MARZULLO, 

DIRECTOR, NATIONAL COORDINATION OFFICE, 

THE NETWORKING AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM 

Dr. MARZULLO. Thank you and good morning. I would like to express my appreciation to Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member 

Lipinski, Chair Smith, and Ranking Member Johnson, and the 

whole committee for this opportunity to come before you today to 

discuss the Networking and Information Technology Research and 

Development Program, the National Coordination Office, and this 

year’s review of the NITRD Program by the President’s Council of 

Advisors on Science and Technology. I will use the corresponding 

acronyms—NITRD, NCO, and PCAST—throughout the rest of my 

comments in the interest of brevity. 

The NITRD Program provides for the coordination of research 

and development in networking and information technology across 

21 federal agencies and many other partners, which collectively 

represent the federal government’s primary investments in re-
27 

search and development for IT-related technologies. The NCO supports coordination activities of the NITRD Program. 

In my oral comments today, I would like to talk a bit about current and future research directions. NITRD currently focuses on 

several areas, including big data; cloud computing; cybersecurity; 

Internet of Things; health IT; high-end computing; software-defined 

networking; and the social, economic, and workforce implications of 

IT and IT workforce development. 

My written testimony gives several examples of recent accomplishments by NITRD groups, including strategic plans, interagency solicitations, and joint workshops, and how they promoted 

R&D in their related research areas. 

Looking forward, the recommendations of PCAST identified a 

key set of R&D areas that with sustained support from Congress 

and across agencies will lead to significant progress in addressing 

national priorities. Some of the suggested R&D areas like cybersecurity have been important for some time and still critically need 

cross-agency coordination. 

There are three areas that PCAST identified, though, that I’d 

like to call out: first, big data and data-intensive computing. We 

recognized some time ago that scientific breakthroughs are increasingly powered by advanced computing capabilities that help researchers manipulate and explore massive data sets. Breakthroughs are now possible in education; city and community services; healthcare; and disaster preparedness prevention, response, 

and recovery. 

However, big data raises important issues with respect to storage 

and curation, as well as to privacy. A continued cross-agency focus 

will accelerate our progress, advancing both the foundations and 

applications of data science and engineering. 

Second: high-capacity computing for discovery, security, and commerce. Here, I would like to note the National Strategic Computing 

Initiative established by executive order earlier this year. Previous 

investments in high-performance computing have contributed substantially to national economic prosperity and have rapidly accelerated scientific discovery, but the path for continued progress is 

steep. We need fundamentally new approaches. 

Delivering exascale computing presents hard technical challenges 

and further progress will require us to overcome the physical limitations imposed by current semiconductor technology. Addressing 

these challenges requires a whole-government approach in which 

NITRD is positioned to play a key coordinating role. 

Third: cyber human systems. The role of people in networking 

and information technology and vice versa are both increasingly 

important. Robotics is moving from closed environments like factory floors to open environments like people’s homes. The devices 

that communicate with each other in the Internet of Things are increasingly doing so as part of systems that fundamentally involve 

people, such as in automobile traffic management, environmental 

monitoring, and aging-in-place support. Cross-agency collaboration 

is required to make progress in computing-enabled human interaction, communication, and augmentation that can enhance human 

capabilities and improve learning, education, and training in all 

fields. 
28 

Let me close by noting that for decades the investments of the 

federal government in basic IT research have helped the nation 

make good progress on grand-challenge problems and address national priorities. Basic IT research has led to significant innovations, to new startups and small businesses, to birth of entirely 

new industries, and sometimes to disruptive technological change. 

The NITRD Program is completely involved in this exciting and 

rapidly changing research and innovation ecosystem through the 

program’s mechanisms that facilitate interagency coordination and 

collaboration on federally funded research and development activities. 

I thank you for your interest in the NITRD Program and the opportunity to appear before you today. The NITRD community looks 

forward to working with you to further the value of interagency cooperation in Networking and Information Technology Research and 

Development. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Marzullo follows:] 
29 

Statement of Dr. Keith Marzullo 

Director, National Coordination Office for the 

Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program, 

to the Subcommittee on Research and Technology of the 

Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

U.S. House of Representatives 

October 28,2015 

Good morning. My name is Keith Marzullo and I am the Director of the National Coordination 

Office (NCO) for the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development 

(NITRO) Program. With my colleague, Dr. James F. Kurose of the National Science Foundation 

(NSF), I co-chair the NITRO Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council 

(NSTC) Committee on Technology (CoT). I want to thank Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking 

Member Lipinski, and members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to come before you 

today to talk about the role of the NITRO Program in federally funded research and development 

(R&D) in advanced networking and information technology (IT). I also look forward to 

discussing the recent review of the NITRO Program by the President's Council of Advisors on 

Science and Technology (PCAST). 

I became Director of the NCO for NITRO in June 2015, and was at the National Science 

Foundation (NSF) prior to that for five years, as well as previously a professor and department 

chair of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California San Diego. While at 

NSF, I directed the Division of Computer and Network Systems in the Directorate of Computer 

and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). Also while at NSF, I had the privilege of cochairing two NITRO Senior Steering Groups, one of which focused on R&D in cybersecurity 

and the other on cyber-physical systems. I bring these experiences to my current position, which 

has shaped my enthusiasm for the great work being done by the NCO and the NITRO Program. 

The NITRD Program 

Authorities and Pumose: The NITRO Program is now in its 25th year, having been authorized by 

the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 (Public Law 102-194), which established the 

Program, and set forth a framework that combined research goals with specific provisions for 

interagency cooperation, collaboration, and partnerships with academia and industry. Two 

additional acts- the Next Generation Internet Research Act of 1998 (Public Law 1 05-305) and 

the America COMPETES Act of 2007 (Public Law 11 0-69)- reauthorized the Program and 

extended its scope in various ways. 

The NITRO Program provides for coordination across the Government's portfolio of 

unclassified investments in fundamental, long-term R&D in advanced information technologies 

in computing, networking, and software. NITRO research supports both the missions of our 

Federal agencies and the Nation's broader goals to accelerate the development and deployment 

of advanced information technologies for science, engineering, national defense, homeland 

security, the U.S. economy, our environment, and the health, education, and quality of life of the 

American people. 
30 

NITRO Agencies: NITRD member agencies are Federal agencies that conduct or support R&D 

in advanced networking and information technologies, report their IT research budgets in the 

NITRO crosscut, and provide support for the NCO. NITRO participating agencies are Federal 

agencies that participate in NITRO activities and have mission interests that involve applications 

or R&D in advanced networking and information technologies. I am pleased to report that 

membership continues to grow and now stands at 21 member agencies with the recent addition 

ofthe National Institute of Justice. Appendix A lists NITRD member and participating agencies. 

Budget Requests and Reporting: Annually, the NCO produces the NITRO Supplement to the 

President's Budget, 1 which is delivered to the Congress as part of the President's budget request. 

The Supplement provides a budget crosscut by agency and by NITRO Program Component Area 

(PCA). The PCAs are the major subject areas under which related projects and activities carried 

out under the NITRD Program are grouped. In support of the budget request, the Supplement 

provides information about the strategic priorities, highlights, plans, and activities that agencies 

plan to coordinate under the PCA in the upcoming fiscal year. 

Agencies currently coordinate their NITRO research activities and plans in eight PCAs. The 

current PCAs are: 

• Cybersecurity and Information Assurance (CSIA) 

• High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS) 

• High End Computing Infrastructure and Applications (HEC I&A) 

• High End Computing Research and Development (HEC R&D) 

• Human Computer Interaction and Information Management (HCI&IM) 

• Large Scale Networking (LSN) 

• Social, Economic, and Workforce Implications of IT and IT Workforce Development 

(SEW) 

• Software Design and Productivity (SDP) 

This PCA structure has hardly changed over the last 15 years. In response to the 2015 PCAST 

recommendations, the NCO is currently coordinating with NITRO member agencies in a process 

to modernize the PC As. (See the section on the 20 15 PCAST Review on page 8.) 

NITRD Coordination and Working Groups: As noted previously, agencies coordinate their 

NITRD research activities and plans in PCAs. For each PCA, agency representatives meet in an 

Interagency Working Group (IWG) or a Coordinating Group (CG) to exchange information and 

collaborate on research plans and activities such as testbeds, workshops, and joint solicitations. 

Such activities enable agencies to coordinate and focus their R&D resources on important, 

shared problems and common goals. 

The NITRO coordinating structure also includes Senior Steering Groups (SSGs) to focus on 

emerging science and technology priorities. The SSGs enable senior-level individuals who have 

the authority to affect or shape the R&D directions of their organizations to collaborate on 

1 For the FY 2016 budget request, see The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development 

Program Supplement to the President's Budget- FY 2016, February 2015, National Science and Technology 

Council: https://www .nitrd.gov/pubs/20 16supplement/FY20 16NITRDSupplement.pdf. 

2 
31 

developing effective R&D strategies for national-level IT challenges. The NITRD Program also 

supports Communities of Practice (CoPs) that function as forums to enhance R&D collaboration 

and promote the adoption of advanced IT capabilities developed by government-sponsored IT 

research. Collectively, we refer to the NITRD IWGs, COs, SSGs, CoPs, and their sub-teams as 

the NITRD Working Groups. Appendix B lists the NITRD Working Groups. 

Overall NITRD Program coordination is carried out by the Subcommittee on Networking and 

Information Technology Research and Development, under the aegis of the Committee on 

Technology (CoT) of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). The NITRD 

Subcommittee convenes three times a year and the NITRD Working Groups each meet 

approximately 12 times annually. In my role as co-chair of the NITRD Subcommittee, I keep in 

contact with NITRD agency representatives on NITRD matters and chair the Subcommittee 

meetings with my colleague and the Subcommittee's other co-chair, Dr. James F. Kurose, NSF 

Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering. 

I note that, in addition to responding to the PCAST's recommendations to modernize the PCAs, 

the NCO is also taking up PCAST's recommendations on the NITRD groups. (See the section on 

the 2015 PCAST Review on page 8.) 

National Coordination Office: The NCO was first established in September 1992 and was 

initially called the National Coordination Office for High Performance Computing and 

Communications (NCOIHPCC). Its name has changed several times over the years; as of July 

2005, it is referred to as the National Coordination Office for Networking and Information 

Technology Research and Development (NCO/NITRD). 

The NCO provides overall support for the planning, coordination, budget, and assessment 

activities of the NITRD Program, including the work of the NITRD Subcommittee, and its 

working groups. The NCO serves as the focal point for the NITRD Program and the source of 

timely, high-quality, technically accurate, in-depth information on IT R&D accomplishments, 

new directions, and critical challenges that IT leaders, policy makers, and the public can use to 

maximize social and economic benefits. 

The NCO, in cooperation with OSTP, OMB, the NITRD agencies and working groups, prepares, 

publishes, and disseminates the annual NITRD Supplement to the President's Budget, Federal 

networking and IT R&D plans, and IT research needs reports. 

The NCO provides technical subject matter expertise for each of the NITRD Working Groups, as 

well as managerial, logistical, IT, and administrative support of the interagency meetings, 

workshops, and conferences. Regular day-to-day NCO activities include responding to inquiries 

and requests for information about the Program and doing outreach through web-based social 

media. The NCO Director maintains close communications with OSTP, OMB, and the NITRD 

agencies, and represents the Program in presentations to organizations both nationally and 

internationally. 

3 
32 

Benefits of the NITRD Program 

For decades, the investments of the Federal Government in basic IT research have helped the 

Nation make good progress on difficult, grand challenge problems and address national 

priorities. Some basic IT research has led to significant innovations, to new start-ups and small 

businesses, the birth of entirely new industries, and sometimes to disruptive technological 

change. Notable successes of "translating research into practice" have helped spur economic 

growth and improve American competitiveness across the global economy. One often-cited 

example of basic IT research paying off extraordinary dividends to the economy and society is 

the evolution of DARPA's ARPANET to NSF's NSFNET and then to the commercial Internet. 2 

There are many other examples that demonstrate the multiplier effect of federally funded 

research in creating economic opportunities. 

The NITRO Program is completely involved in this exciting and rapidly changing research and 

innovation ecosystem due, in large part, to the Program's mechanisms that facilitate interagency 

coordination and collaboration on federally funded research activities. These mechanisms 

include: 

• Regular meetings of the NITRO Working Groups 

• Formal reports, including the annual NITRO Supplement to the President's Budget and 

strategic planning documents 

• Workshops and events, with participants from government, academia, and industry 

• Support for interagency collaborations, such as joint research solicitations and testbeds 

• Contributions to the research and innovation ecosystem 

• Outreach to Federal agencies, academia, industry, and the public 

I will illustrate these with some examples and highlights. 

Meetings: The regular meetings of the NITRO Working Groups enable information sharing and 

awareness. Information sharing is a fundamentally important practical benefit of participating in 

the Program. Being aware of the programs and activities of other agencies enables participants to 

work better together, build on their respective strengths, and avoid duplication of effort. Over the 

course of2014, the NCO supported nearly 250 meetings, including regularly scheduled and adhoc gatherings. Additionally, many of the Working Groups hold Annual Planning Meetings 

(APMs) to share agency program information and plans for the upcoming year, and to coordinate 

strategic priorities for the PCAs. 

We believe that agencies see the NCO as both an effective, neutral convener that fosters 

interagency dialogue and as a steady, experienced partner that can incubate cross-agency efforts 

to coordinate emerging IT R&D interests. For example, the agencies in the Video and Imaging 

2 For examples, the Committee may wish to refer to the National Research Council's "tire tracks" chart and study. In 

2003, the National Research Council's Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB} updated the 

original 1995 tire tracks figure from the Evolving the High Performance Computing and Communications report in a 

new report, Innovation in Information Technology, which summarized eight prior CSTB studies on the subject. See 

also the examples of companies created from Federal agency-funded research in the 2013 report of the Science 

Coalition, Sparking Economic Growth 2.0: Companies Created from Federally Funded University Research, 

Fueling American Innovation and Economic Growth. 

4 
33 

Analytics (VIA) Coordination Group came to the NCO and asked it to help transition their adhoc, grassroots effort, formed in the aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon attacks, to a 

sustainable entity that could support their coordination of R&D on video and imaging analytics 

of the visible world. The VIA CG joined the NITRD Program last year. 

Reports and Strategic Plans: The NCO supports the NITRD Program in a number of strategic 

planning and coordination activities. The development and release of the 2011 Cybersecurity 

R&D Strategic Plan is one exemplar of that process.3 A notable aspect of the 2011 strategy was 

that it broadened the research focus in an important way: instead of focusing solely on 

technology, it called for the development of effective incentives, affecting both individuals and 

organizations, to make cybersecurity ubiquitous. Such incentives can involve market-based, 

legal, regulatory, or institutional interventions. Developing such incentives requires advances in 

understanding the motivations and vulnerabilities of both markets and humans, and how these 

factors affect and interact with technical systems. This Plan has had a number of impacts in the 

R&D community, which I will highlight later, and continues to be relevant to the strategic 

planning process today. In fact, earlier this year the NITRD CSIA R&D SSG issued a Request 

for Information (RFI) to solicit feedback on the 2011 plan and inputs for updating the strategy. 

The SSG is currently developing an updated strategic plan that incorporates the RFI comments 

and responds to the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of2014 (Public Law 113-274). 

Two additional important strategic planning efforts are underway. One is on privacy R&D and 

the other is on Big Data R&D. The privacy effort is being led by the CSIA R&D SSG to help 

address concerns about the evolving impacts of IT on privacy, as detailed in recent White House 

and PCAST reports.4 The Big Data effort is a follow-on activity of the Big Data SSG's 

leadership in the national Big Data R&D Initiative (launched in March 2012) and has goals to 

advance R&D in Big Data technologies and applications and grow the field of data science. 

Workshops: The NCO supports and conducts workshops as a proven tool for convening and 

engaging stakeholders in dialogue on critically important topics and issues. Workshops also 

provide the intellectual time and space for participants to work out approaches and solutions to 

problems. In addition to these benefits, the workshop materials and resulting reports serve as 

important artifacts for the participants and the broader community to reference long after the 

event is over. I'd like to highlight three NITRD areas in which workshops have helped us make 

significant progress (see the NITRD website at www.nitrd.gov for the workshop reports): 

• Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Workshops. In computer networking architecture, 

SDN is an approach that separates the network control and data planes. While SDN is 

already being adopted by industry, emerging SDN technologies will enable the creation 

of a new form of distributed infrastructure that can support advanced applications for 

3 Trustworthy Cyberspace: Strategic Plan for the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Program, 

December 2011, National Science and Technology Council: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default!fileslmicrosites/ostp/fed cybersecurity rd strategic plan 201l.pdf. 4 Big Data: Seizing Opportunities, Preserving Values, May 2014, The White House: 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default!files/docs/big data privacy report may I 20!4.pdf and Report to the 

President Big Data and Privacy: A Technological Perspective, May 2014, President's Council of Advisors on 

Science and Technology: https:/lwww.whitehouse.gov/sites/default!fileslmicrosites/ostp/PCASTI 

pcast big data and privacy - may 20 14.pdf .. 

5 
34 

scientific, research, and commercial needs. SDN workshops held in December 2013 and 

July 2015, with leadership and support from the NCO and NITRO LSN CO, reviewed 

SDN research programs and advanced a roadmap for operating SON-based networks. 

• Wireless Spectrum R&D (WSRD) Workshops. There is an ever-increasing demand on 

available spectrum from the rapidly growing number of wireless devices, networks, and 

applications in our world today. Spectrum supports many types of critical government 

communications, and is the basis of the wireless revolution that is enabling new 

businesses and new ways to connect in our daily lives. Since 2010, agencies in the 

NITRO WSRO SSG have been funding R&D in spectrum-sharing technologies to enable 

more efficient use of radio spectrum. The SSG has held seven public-private workshops 

to identifY and address significant issues in spectrum-sharing. The most recent workshop, 

"Federal - Commercial Spectrum Sharing: Models, Application, and Impacts of 

Incentives for Sharing," was held in March 2015. 

• Privacy R&D Workshop. In February 2015, the National Privacy Research Strategy 

workshop was held by the NITRO National Privacy Research Forum (NPRF) as part of 

the process of developing a national privacy R&D strategy. A broad range of 

stakeholders participated, including privacy researchers, technology experts, 

communications experts, corporate representatives, legal scholars, sociologists, and 

philosophers. The participants in this workshop considered and debated different focus 

areas and objectives for a federal privacy R&D strategy. 

Interagency collaborations: Interagency collaboration is difficult, but agencies working together 

can sometimes make a much broader impact with their R&D investments than can be 

accomplished by a single agency alone. An exemplar of such activity fostered through the 

NITRO Program is the joint solicitation for foundational research in cyber-physical systems 

(CPS). 5 Through interagency coordination enabled by NITRO, an NSF program solicitation on 

CPS was expanded to include DHS and DOT. For FY 2015 the solicitation expanded further to 

include NSF, DHS, DOT, NASA, and NIH. This joint solicitation allows the agencies and the 

community of researchers they fund to benefit from the synergy created by research on core CPS 

technologies and research applied to their mission domains. 

The CPS SSG also collaborated with experts from the White House Presidential Innovation 

Fellows program on the SmartAmerica and Global City Teams Challenges.6 These projects are 

spurring innovation in CPS and the Internet of Things (loT) through public-private partnerships. 

Additionally, this past summer, the CPS SSG developed a multiagency framework for Smart 

Cities and Connected Communities to help coordinate Federal agency investments and outside 

collaborations. The framework focuses on foundational research and the entire R&D pipeline to 

transition new Smart City technologies into scalable and replicable approaches. This framework 

from the NITRO Program contributes to the goals of the Administration's Smart Cities Initiative 

(launched in September 2015) to promote research and innovation in this area. 

Contributions to the research and innovation ecosystem: There are a number of ways that 

demonstrate the contributions of the NITRO Program to the larger research and innovation 

5 Cyber-Physical Systems Joint Program Solicitation, http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/20 15/nsfl554l/nsfl5541.htm. 6 Smart America Challenge: https://www. whitehouse.gov/blog/20 14/06/l 0/smartamerica-challenge-hamessingpower-internet-things; Global City Teams Challenge: https://www.us-ignite.orglglobalcityteams/partners/. 

6 
35 

ecosystem. One way is to consider all the myriad R&D activities generated by implementing 

strategic plans. Another is by making open Federal data accessible. For example, the NCO has 

taken data collected by Federal entities and developed web-based portals to provide access to 

that data. I will give two examples that demonstrate the Program's impact in these ways: 

• Implementing an R&D Strategic Plan. The 2011 Cybersecurity R&D Strategic Plan 

called for Federal investments that aligned with four research themes7 and for follow-on 

coordination activities to bring promising research to practice. A year after the Plan's 

release, the NCO prepared a progress report on the implementation across Federal 

agencies.8 Notable impacts were evident in, for example, the NSF Secure and 

Trustworthy Computing (SaTC) Program and the DHS S&T Moving Target Defense 

Program, including such research activities as: 

o Trustworthy Health and Wellness (THaW), a project led by Dartmouth College to 

tackle the challenges of providing trustworthy information systems for health and 

wellness given that sensitive information and health-related tasks are being 

increasingly pushed to mobile devices and cloud-based services. 

o Usable Privacy Policy Project, led by Carnegie Mellon University to develop 

scalable technologies for extracting key privacy policy features semiautomatically from website privacy policies, thereby helping users understand the 

privacy provided by websites before disclosing their information. This project 

includes transitioning their technology into open source browsers. 

o Funding of 12 new cybersecurity education research projects. Among these are a 

healthcare-based cybersecurity competition designed to bring young women into 

the field; a "build it, break it, fix it" competition to encourage not just breaking 

into, but also improving systems; a cybersecurity education center targeted toward 

veterans; and an effort focused on curriculum development for cyber-physical 

systems security and privacy education. Cybersecurity education research extends 

to research on the teaching and learning of cybersecurity. In addition to 

cybersecurity education research, funding is provided to institutions with strong 

existing academic programs in cybersecurity to award scholarships to students in 

cybersecurity in exchange for their taking a position in a government agency. 

o DHS S&T made four awards under an FY 20 II Broad Agency Announcement 

(BAA) in the topic area of Moving Target Defense, plus an additional three 

awards under other BAAs. In addition, a total of seven Small Business Innovation 

Research (SBIR) awards were made in the topic area. The work reported included 

innovative hardware cache designs to increase resiliency, novel bio-inspired 

approaches to intrusion and anomalous behavior detection, a multi-kernel OS 

architecture that increases system resilience, IP-hopping utilizing IPv6, and Multilayer Ever-changing Self-defense Services (MESS) that are both resilient and 

manageable. 

7 The research themes are: Designed-In Security, Tailored Trustworthy Spaces, Moving Target, and CyberEconomic Initiatives. 8 Report on Implementing the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategy, June 2014, Networking 

and Information Technology Research and Development Subcommittee: 

https:llwww.nitrd.gov/PUBS/ImplFedCybersecurityRDStrategy-June20 l4.pdf. 

7 
36 

• Wireless spectrum-sharing testbed inventory. With data gathered from the WSRD SSG 

agencies, the NCO created a unique online testbed information portal that shows the 

locations and capabilities of existing spectrum testing facilities, and indicates the status 

and availability of each facility to Federal, academic, and private sector researchers. By 

being aware of these testbeds, agencies can consider ways to share testbed resources. The 

economic and engineering benefits of sharing IT testbed environments can be substantial, 

including avoiding the expense of duplicate facilities. 

Outreach: The NITRD Program uses a variety of mechanisms to reach out to researchers, 

private-sector developers, resource providers, and end users. Examples include two groups under 

the LSN CG: the Joint Engineering Team (JET) and Middleware and Grid Interagency 

Coordination (MAGIC) group, which have academic and industry members; the Faster 

Administration of Science and Technology Education and Research (FASTER) Community of 

Practice (CoP), which seeks exchanges of information with the private sector and new 

technologies to streamline the management of Federal research; and the multisector NITRD 

research workshops held in all the PCAs. Additionally, the NCO has an active social media 

presence to promote agency announcements and events and to share digital content of interest to 

the NITRD community and the general public. 

2015 PCAST Review ofNITRD and Recommendations to the NCO 

As the Committee is aware, this past year the PCAST conducted a review of the NITRD 

Program. The PCAST released its report in August 20159 and its review, in my view, was quite 

positive overall. We invited Dr. Susan Graham, a PCAST member and co-chair of the PCAST 

NITRD Working Group, to the August meeting of the NITRD Subcommittee at which time she 

briefed the Subcommittee members about PCAST's findings and recommendations. Since the 

release of the report, the NCO has coordinated a number of activities with NITRD stakeholders 

to facilitate further discussion and respond to the recommendations. 

Recommendations 1-9: I agree with the PCAST that the IT landscape changes rapidly, and we 

need to focus R&D and the needs for education and workforce on the areas PCAST identified. 

The NCO will be coordinating with stakeholders on how to respond to these recommendations. I 

should note that we were delighted to see that Congress explicitly included computer science in 

the recent STEM Education Act of2015 (Public Law 114-59) and thank Chairman Smith and the 

full House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology for bringing this legislation forward. 

Recommendation l 0: I agree with the PCAST that the NITRD Program must evolve its PC As in 

step with national priorities, and that the PC As should be in the vanguard of foundational IT 

research and development activities that lead to future innovations. Over the years, many of the 

agency experts who participate in the NITRD Working Groups have anticipated shifts in the 

frontiers of IT and managed to adapt the focus of R&D activities under the existing PC As 

without us redefining them. I agree with the PCAST, however, that it is time to take a different 

approach. The NCO currently has a process underway with OSTP, OMB, PCAST, NITRD 

Subcommittee members, and agency representatives in the NITRD Working Groups to address 

9 

Report to the President and Congress Ensuring Leadership in Federally Funded Research and Development in 

Information Technology. August 2015, President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology: 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sitesldefault/files/microsites/ostp/PC AST/nitrd report aug 20 15.pdf. 

8 
37 

changes to the PCAs. We look fmward to working with all NITRO stakeholders to improve the 

Program for the future. 

Recommendation 11: I agree with the PCAST's recommendations on developing a transparent 

process for creating, chartering, monitoring, and tasking NITRO groups. The NCO is currently 

coordinating with OSTP, PCAST, NITRO Subcommittee members, and agency representatives 

in the NITRO Working Groups to address the PCAST's recommendations on the group structure 

and process. 

Future Directions 

As I stated previously, I agree wholeheartedly with the PCAST's observations on the changing 

nature of IT across the broad spectrum of computing, networking, and storage technologies. I 

believe that in its first nine recommendations, PCAST identified a set of key R&D areas that, 

with sustained and cross-agency support, will lead to significant progress in addressing national 

priorities. There are three areas, though, that I would like to call out as having particularly strong 

leverage with many of these national priorities. These are the areas where I especially would like 

to see the NITRO Program have an increased focus: 

• Big Data and data-intensive computing: We recognized some time ago that scientific 

breakthroughs are increasingly powered by advanced computing capabilities that help 

researchers manipulate and explore massive datasets. Breakthroughs are now possible in 

education, urban services, critical infrastructure, healthcare, and disaster preparedness, 

prevention, response, and recovery. However, Big Data raises important issues with 

respect to storage and curation as well as to privacy. With the emergence of novel 

techniques and technologies for advancing both the foundations and applications of data 

science and engineering, a continued cross-agency focus will help accelerate our 

progress. 

• High-capability computing for discovery, security, and commerce: In this point, I echo 

the call in the Executive Order for a National Strategic Computing Initiative. Previous 

investments in high-performance computing (HPC) have contributed substantially to 

national economic prosperity and rapidly accelerated scientific discovery, but the path for 

continued progress is quite steep. We very much need fundamentally new approaches in 

HPC. Delivering exascale computing presents several hard technical challenges, and 

further progress will require us to overcome the physical limitations imposed by current 

semiconductor technology. These technical challenges require a whole-of-government 

approach in which NITRO can play a key role. 

• Cyber-human systems: The role of people in network and information technology is 

increasingly important, and vice versa. The use of robotics is moving from constrained 

environments like factory floors to open environments like people's homes; cyberphysical systems increasingly include people in the loop; and the devices that are 

communicating with each other in the "Internet of Things" are increasingly doing so as 

part of systems that fundamentally involve people (for example, traffic, environmental 

monitoring, and aging in place). Cross-agency collaboration is required to make progress 

in the computing-enabled human interaction and communication that enhances the 

modes, richness, and effectiveness of interchange among individuals and computingenabled devices. Cross-agency collaboration is also required to make progress in 

9 
38 

computing-enabled augmentation to enhance human capabilities and to provide improved 

learning, education, and training in all fields. 

I thank you for your interest in the NITRD Program and the opportunity to provide testimony 

before the Subcommittee on Research and Technology of the House Committee on Science, 

Space, and Technology. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

10 
39 

Appendix A- NITRD Agencies NITRD Member Agencies 

Department of Commerce (DOC) 

National Institute of Standards and Technology 

(NIST) 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

(NOAA) 

Department of Defense (DoD) 

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 

(DARPA) 

National Security Agency (NSA) 

Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) 

Service Research Organizations (Air Force, Army, 

Navy) 

Department of Energy (DOE) 

National Nuclear Security Administration 

(DOE/NNSA) 

Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy 

Reliability (DOE/OE) 

Office of Science (DOE/SC) 

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality 

(AHRQ) 

National Institutes of Health (NIH) 

Office of the National Coordinator for Health 

Information Technology (ONC) 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 

Department of Justice (DOJ) 

National Institute of Justice (NIJ) 

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

(NASA) 

National Archives and Records Administration 

(NARA) 

National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) 

National Science Foundation (NSF) 

NITRO Participating Agencies 

Department of Commerce (DOC) 

National Telecommunications and Information 

Administration (NTIA) 

Department of Defense (DoD) 

Military Health System (MHS) 

Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research 

Center (T A TRC) 

Department of Education (ED) 

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 

Indian Health Service (IHS) 

Department oflnterior (Interior) 

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 

Department of Justice (DOJ) 

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 

11 

Department ofLabor (DOL) 

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) 

Department of State (State) 

Department of Transportation (DOT) 

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) 

Federal Highway Administration (FHW A) 

Department of the Treasury (Treasury) 

Office of Financial Research (OFR) 

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) 

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) 

General Services Administration (GSA) 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) 

Office ofthe Director of National Intelligence 

(ODNI) 

Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity 

(!ARPA) 

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) 

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 

National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) 

Appendix B- NITRD Working Groups 

Interagency Working Groups (IWGs) 

Cyber Security and Information Assurance (CSIA) 

High End Computing (HEC) 

Coordinating Groups (CGs) 

High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS) 

Human Computer Interaction and Information 

Management (HCI&IM) 

Large Scale Networking (LSN) 

LSNTeams: 

Joint Engineering Team (JET) 

Middleware and Grid Interagency 

Coordination (MAGIC) Team 

Social, Economic, and Workforce Implications of IT 

and IT Workforce Development (SEW) 

SEW Teams: 

SEW-Collaboration Team 

SEW-Education Team 

Social Computing Team 

Software Design and Productivity (SDP) 

Video and Image Analytics (VIA) 

Senior Steering Groups (SSGs) 

Big Data (BD) 

Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) 

Cybersecurity and Information Assurance R&D 

(CSIAR&D) 

Wireless Spectrum R&D (WSRD) 

Communities of Practice (CoPs) 

Faster Administration of Science and Technology 

Education and Research (FASTER) 

Health Information Technology R&D (HITRD) 
40 

Biography for Keith A. Marzullo, Ph.D. 

Dr. Keith Marzullo is the Director of the Federal Networking and Information Technology 

Research and Development (NITRO) National Coordination Office (NCO). He also serves as the 

Co-chair of the NITRO Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) 

Committee on Technology (CoT), where he oversees the operations and activities of the NITRO 

Program. The NCO reports to the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Executive 

Office of the President. 

Dr. Marzullo joins NITRO NCO from the National Science Foundation (NSF), where he served 

as the Division Director for the Computer and Network Systems (CNS) Division in the 

Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Directorate. He also served as Co-Chair 

of the NITRO Cybersecurity and Cyber Physical Systems R&D Senior Steering Groups. 

Prior to joining NSF, Dr. Marzullo was a faculty member at the University of California, San 

Diego's Computer Science and Engineering Department from 1993-2014, and served as the 

Department Chair from 2006-2010. He has also been on the faculty of the Computer Science 

Department of Cornell University (1986-1992) and a Professor at Large of the Department of 

Informatics at the University of Tromso (1999-2005), and was a principal in a startup (ISIS 

Distributed Systems, 1998-2002). Dr. Marzullo received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from 

Stanford University, where he developed the Xerox Research Internet Clock Synchronization 

protocol, one of the first practical fault-tolerant protocols for keeping widely-distributed clocks 

synchronized with each other. 
41 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. 

And I now recognize Dr. Hager for five minutes to present his 

testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. GREGORY D. HAGER, 

MANDELL BELLMORE PROFESSOR, 

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE, 

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY; 

CO-CHAIR, NITRD WORKING GROUP, 

THE PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL OF ADVISORS 

ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

Dr. HAGER. Thank you and good morning. I would like to express 

my appreciation as well to Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski, Chairman Smith, and Ranking Member Johnson, and 

the other members of the Subcommittee on Research and Technology for this opportunity to present my perspectives on the 

NITRD Program. 

As you are aware, by executive order the PCAST is charged with 

periodically reviewing the NITRD Program and has delivered reports previously in 2010 and 2013. To perform this most recent review, PCAST convened a working group consisting of seven experts 

from academia and industry. I co-chaired this group, together with 

Dr. Susan Graham, a PCAST member and professor emerita at the 

University of California Berkeley. I am pleased to be able to share 

with you a summary of some of the findings and recommendations 

of the report. My written testimony has a more complete overview 

of the report. 

In the report, we note that when the High Performance Computing Act was introduced in 1991, much of computing research, 

particularly at the high end, focused on advances in computing systems themselves. As already noted in other opening remarks, today’s picture is far broader. Computing empowers scientific inquiry, exploration, teaching and learning, and consumer buying 

and selling. Nearly every device, be it a car, a kitchen appliance, 

equipment on the manufacturing floor, or a child’s toy is enhanced 

by information technology. 

As already noted the National Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 

that more than half of all new jobs in STEM will be related to information technology. 

These incredible advances in computing are reshaping the field 

of computing itself, creating an expanding research agenda that is 

increasingly driven by interactions among computing devices, people, and the physical world they inhabit, and which it is also increasingly important to many national priorities. 

In preparing this most recent review, the PCAST NITRD working group consulted previous NITRD reviews, interviewed experts 

in a variety of areas, and ultimately chose eight key areas upon 

which to present findings and recommendations. Two national priorities, cybersecurity and health are highlighted. With respect to 

cybersecurity, the report calls out the need to support continued research on the development of secure systems, research on the management of imperfect systems and human fallibility, and mechanisms to translate new solutions into practice. 
42 

With respect to health, the report notes a growing community of 

technology researchers working in this space and highlights the 

need to empower this community through open interfaces, standards, and mechanisms for accelerating the deployment of solutions 

into practice. 

The report highlights two areas: cyber human systems and privacy where there are strong cross-disciplinary ties with the social 

and behavioral sciences and with the policy community. Cyber 

human systems are computational systems that support communication and coordination of individuals, groups, and organizations. 

As noted by Dr. Marzullo, advances in understanding of cyber 

human systems, will rely on fundamental research to understand 

the interplay of people and computing in coordination with missionfocused research and important societal needs such as education 

and health. 

The report finds that privacy is increasingly threatened by the 

growth of online activity. Advances in privacy research will require 

deep collaboration among computer scientists, legal scholars, and 

behavioral and social scientists to inform both the design of computing systems and the drafting of policies and regulations. 

Two areas where past investments are beginning to pay off for 

NITRD: IT-based interaction with the physical world and data-intensive computing. Recommendations for both of these areas call 

out the need for additional basic research but also highlight the 

need for coordination with mission agencies to advance applications 

of this work. 

Finally, two areas in the technology base are reviewed. First, 

high-capability computing continues to be essential to our nation. 

The National Strategic Computing Initiative is an opportunity to 

implement a sustained program of long-term fundamental research 

on architectures, algorithms and software to ensure continued advances for both data-intensive and computing-intensive applications. 

And last but most importantly, many of the advances we enjoy 

today grew from decades of foundational research. The report emphasizes that continued support for foundational research is essential to provide the basis for future innovations and disruptive advances in the use of IT. 

Noting the anticipated growth in IT-related jobs, the report discusses the educational needs of the nation and recommends that 

the NITRD Subcommittee work in partnership with NSF and the 

Department of Education to develop educational and training opportunities in IT at all levels. 

Finally, the report reviews the current organization of the 

NITRD Program and makes several recommendations to ensure 

the NITRD Program keeps pace with the continuing evolution of 

the computing field. 

I will close by reiterating the findings our working committee affirmed that the NITRD Program continues to play an important 

role in guiding effective investments in computing research. I 

would like to again thank the Committee for this opportunity to 

discuss the findings of the NITRD working group, and I stand 

ready to help the Committee to advance its efforts in advancing 

computing research. 
43 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hager follows:] 
44 

TESTIMONY OF DR. GREGORY D. HAGER 

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 

BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY 

HEARING ON 

A REVIEW OF THE NETWORKING AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROGAM 

OCTOBER 28, 2015 

I would first like to express my appreciation to Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member 

Lipinski, and the other members of the Subcommittee on Research and Technology for this 

opportunity to present my perspectives on the Networking and Information Technology 

Research and Development (NITRD) Program. 

As the co-Chair of the NITRD working group of the President's Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (PCAST), I am pleased to share my perspective of the most recent review of the NITRD program with you. That perspective is also informed by my position as 

the Mandell Bellmore Professor of Computer Science at johns Hopkins University, as well as 

my role serving as the Chair of the Computing Research Association's (CRA) Computing 

Community Consortium (CCC) - a partnership between the National Science Foundation 

and CRA that serves as a visioning body for the computing research community. 

As you are aware, The High Performance Computing Act of 1991 (Public Law 102-194) established the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) 

program. The purpose of that Act and subsequent legislation is to coordinate the Federal 

investment in information technology (IT) research and development to ensure continued 

United States leadership in this important area. This coordination is carried out by the NlTRD subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). By Executive 

Order, PCAST is charged with periodically reviewing the NITRD program. 

To perform this most recent review, PCAST convened a working group consisting of seven 

experts from academia and industry. I co-chaired this group together with Dr. Susan Graham (a PCAST member, and professor emerita in Computer Science Division of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley). The working group and PCAST consulted with government agencies, leading academic 

and national laboratory experts, industry leaders, and other stakeholders to assess the 

health and evolution of the forefront of research and development in IT. The working group 

also assessed the operation and effectiveness of the coordination activities carried out by 

the NITRD subcommittee. 

My remarks today summarize and offer my perspective on the findings and recommendations of the report. These cover the state of research and development in IT research fields, 

the preparation of the future IT workforce, and the coordination of IT activities in 18 member agencies and Federal entities by the NITRD subcommittee of the National Science and 

Technology Council (NSTC). 

1 
45 

The Evolution of Computing Research 

Before I present the recommendations contained in the report, I will first highlight how the 

field of information technology has evolved over the past three decades, as informed by the 

work of the working group. 

Information technology drives the modern world. Nearly 80 percent of the households in 

the developed world have access to the Internet, and nearly half of the world is connected. 

Nearly every device -be it a car, a kitchen appliance, a device on the manufacturing floor, or 

a child's toy - is enhanced by information technology. Information technology empowers 

scientific inquiry, space and Earth exploration, teaching and learning, and consumer buying 

and selling. It informs decision-making, national security, transportation, advanced manufacturing, and protection of the environment The National Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that more than half of all new jobs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) will be related to information technology. 

An important driver has been the exponential advances in computing power - dubbed 

Moore's law- coupled with Dennard scaling which allows such advances to take place while 

consuming roughly constant power. As a concrete example, a device with the power of a 

1980's supercomputer, which consumed nearly 200 KW of power, now fits in our pocket 

and consumes less than 10 watts. As a result, a significant fraction of the majority of Americans who own a smart phone are now carrying a 1980's supercomputer in their pocket 

These incredible advances in computing have also reshaped the field of computing itself. 

When the High Performance Computing Act was introduced in 1991, much of computing 

research, particularly at the high end, focused on advances in computing systems themselves. Computing research was organized around three large areas - computing hardware 

and systems, software, and networking. 

Over the subsequent decades the notion of a computer system has come to encompass a 

much broader range of components - computers, networks, specialized hardware such as 

graphics accelerators, and the software that runs on them. Large computing systems consist 

of networks of computers and high-capacity storage systems. Sensors now play a larger role 

- many computers are now equipped for video, sound, provide location services via GPS 

chips, velocity information via accelerometers, and bearing via a digital compass. The range 

of applications that run on these systems has broadened to include many physical devices 

(from home appliances to cars to surgical robots), web services, and mobile apps. 

As a result of these advances, data - its acquisition, transmission, management, and use, 

have come to play an ever-increasing role in computing research. Users of computing simultaneously grew from a small group of specialists to encompass a much larger and more diverse user community, fueled by enormous growth in the computing industry. As a result, 

the breadth and role of "applications" grew. This has led to modern computing research to 

embrace a far broader research agenda increasingly driven by the intimate interactions 

among computing devices, people, and the physical world. 

Along with those transitions, the domains in which IT is used - health, transportation, manufacturing, robotics, societal computing, smart infrastructure, defense, and scientific discovery - have begun to shape IT R&D. These domains create new opportunities for our country 

- the emergence of autonomous vehicles that will serve an aging population or provide ac2 
46 

cess to hostile territory, the opportunity to understand medical conditions and treatments 

at a greater depth than ever before, the ability to manufacture products efficiently and competitively in the United States, and many more. In short, IT research now impacts many of 

our most pressing national priorities. 

PCAST Review of the NITRO Program 

In light of this evolving landscape for computing research, there are many important areas 

of IT research and development that fall under the NITRO program. The PCAST NITRO 

working group examined previous NITRO reviews (from 2010 and 2013), interviewed ex· 

perts in a variety of areas, and ultimately chose eight key areas upon which to present find· 

ings and recommendations. They are as follows: 

Cybersecurity: Concern about the security of computing systems has intensified with the 

widespread global interconnectedness enabled by the Internet. PCAST found that federal 

investment in at least five key research and development areas will improve the founda· 

tions of cybersecurity: 1) cybersecurity by design - an understanding of how to construct 

secure and trustworthy systems; 2) defense against attack - as systems are in use, they 

need ongoing mechanisms for authentication, authorization, data provenance and integrity 

checks, and powerful tools to automatically detect potential vulnerabilities; 3) systems resilience- improved methods to mitigate the effects of an attack; 4) implementation support 

- methods to formally express cybersecurity policies in ways that are understandable both 

to people and to computers and tools to use them for policy implementation and compli· 

ance checking; and 5) better and faster methods for attribution, so that both technical and 

non-technical mitigations are possible. 

PCAST recommends that: 

The National Science Foundation (NSF) should sponsor broad foundational research 

on methods to facilitate end-to-end construction of trustworthy systems, particular· 

ly for emerging application domains, and on ways to anticipate and defend against 

attacks, engaging not only computer science but also other engineering disciplines 

and behavioral and social science. 

• In coordination with this research program, the mission agencies - Department of 

Defense (DOD), National Security Agency (NSA), Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS), and Department of Energy (DOE), in particular, but also others - should 

sponsor both foundational and more applied mission- appropriate investigations of 

these topics. 

The research sponsors should work closely with all agencies, including their own, 

and the private sector to facilitate the translation of the most promising research results into practice. 

IT and Health: A growing community of IT researchers, primarily with support from NSF 

and NIH, is actively developing technologies at the frontier of IT and health. These include 

the use of mobile devices and biometric technologies to support patient monitoring and 

coaching, new smart devices that augment human physical and intellectual capabilities, and 

new modeling methods that provide enhanced diagnosis or prediction of disease. PCAST 

found that many opportunities for research are inhibited by significant barriers in gaining 

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47 

access to health data and the lack of standards to ensure inter-operability and promote 

technology and data exchange. 

PCAST recommends that: 

NSF, Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH, Defense Advanced Research Projects 

Agency (DARPA}, DOD, and other agencies with responsibility for aspects of health 

care should continue to support foundational research in health IT. The National 

Science and Technology Council (NSTC) should continue to support coordination efforts such as the Health Information Technology Research and Development 

(HITRD} Senior Steering Group (SSG). 

NSF, HHS, National Institutes of Health (NIH), and National Institute of Standards 

and Technology (NIST} should develop and nurture open interfaces, standards, and 

also incentives for promoting the leveraging of electronic health data in data analyses in support of biomedical research and in the delivery of health care. 

NIH and HHS should create funding mechanisms that will encourage accelerated 

deployment, testing, and evolution of translational IT systems for clinical use. 

IT and the Physical World: Research and commercial opportunities in systems that couple 

IT technologies with sensing and actuation are seeing the fruits of prior decades of research 

emerge into the broader view - for example automated driving capabilities, now emerging 

in the marketplace, originated in research that began over 30 years ago with support from 

NSF and DARPA. PCAST found that research in: 1) physical IT and human interaction; 2} 

physical IT and robust autonomy; 3) physical IT and sensing, 4) development of hardware 

and software abstractions for physical IT systems; and 5) trustworthy physical IT systems is 

needed to advance this field. Additionally, as new products and technologies are developed 

for IT-enabled sensing and acting in the physical world, it is important to put in place open 

standards and platforms that will encourage sharing of new technologies with and among 

the research community. 

PCAST recommends that: 

NSF and DARPA should lead cross-disciplinary programs that will advance research 

and development of new approaches to robust autonomy, advance security and reli· 

ability of such systems, promote integrative approaches to human interaction, ex· 

plore new sensing and interface technologies, and incentivize fundamental science 

on the cognitive and social aspects of interactive physical systems. 

Mission agencies- particularly DOD, Department of Transportation (DOT}, and NIH 

- and NIST should promote the development of open platforms and sharable infrastructure for research on physical systems within application domains - transporta· 

tion, agriculture, urban infrastructure, health care, and defense. 

Cyber-human Systems: Computing is integral to Americans' work and personal lives and 

to the aims and processes of organizations, government and society. Yet, many aspects of 

cyber·human systems are not well understood and warrant further research. Among them 

are computer-based learning as it relates to various socioeconomic groups; social media 

and networked communication and the effects on cognitive behavior; emerging "smart" 

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48 

consumer products or services and their social influences; human-machine collaboration 

and complementary problem solving; and development of ways of integrating big data analysis and traditional scientific method into new research pedagogies. 

PCAST also found that interagency coordination has been effective in some areas of cyberhuman systems such as visualization and team science, but has been only sporadic in other 

areas such as social computing, human-robot interaction, privacy, health informatics, and 

human learning and education. 

PCAST recommends that: 

NSF should continue to broaden its support for fundamental research on the systems and science of the interplay of people and computing. 

OSTP and the NITRO Subcommittee of NSTC should establish or strengthen coordination at both higher and lower levels among at least NSF, DOD, DARPA. NIH, and 

ED. In particular, coordination and support in areas such as social computing, human-robot interaction, privacy, and health-related aspects of human-computer systems should be enhanced. 

Privacy Protection: Privacy is an important human and societal value, and its protection is 

increasingly threatened by the growing amounts of online data. Advances in privacy research require collaboration among computer scientists, government and legal scholars, 

and behavioral and social scientists to inform both the design of computing systems and the 

drafting of policies and regulations. Technology should be developed so that the burden of 

privacy protection does not fall on the people being protected. Among the research challenges are: 1) understanding and clarifying what is meant by "privacy", 2) automatically 

tracking the use of all forms of personal data, automating compliance checking, 3) devising 

methods to use private data without disclosing private information, 4) detecting, signaling, 

and mitigating information leakage and privacy violations as they occur, and 5) creating 

mechanisms, frameworks, and tools to enable system builders to construct privacypreserving systems without themselves being privacy experts. 

PCAST recommends that the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and NSTC 

should continue to develop and expand a multi-agency research and development program 

to advance the science, engineering, policy, and social understanding of privacy protection. 

Agency participation should include at least NSF; NIH; the units of DOD, NSA, and DHS studying the extensions of cybersecurity R&D to encompass privacy; and other relevant units 

within HHS, NIST, DOT, and the Department of Education (ED). 

High Capability Computing: High capability computing continues to be critical to national 

defense, to discovery-based research in all fields of scientific endeavor, and to commerce. 

Advances in R&D have brought the field near to the fundamental physical limits of computer 

chips and to a state of ever-increasing complexity in software and computational design. 

Fundamental new approaches are essential for all aspects of the design of high-capability 

systems, from hardware to applications programming. Innovations in the energy use of 

computer systems, programmability, runtime optimization, system software, and software 

tools are all needed. 

PCAST recommends that: 

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49 

NSTC should lead an effort by NSF, DOE, DOD, NIH, member agencies of the Intelligence Community, and other relevant Federal agencies to implement a joint initiative for long-term, basic research based on the new National Strategic Computing Initiative aimed at developing fundamentally new approaches to high-capability computing. That research should be sufficiently broad that it encompasses not only 

modeling and simulation, but also data-intensive and communication-intensive ap· 

plication domains. 

Under the leadership of OSTP, NSTC and the NCO should establish multi-agency co· 

ordination not only at the level of program managers, but also at the higher adminis· 

trative levels reflected in the senior steering groups (SSGs). 

Big Data and Data-Intensive Computing: As the widespread use of computing grows and 

data generation increases dramatically, big data and data-centric computing play a central 

role in the vitality of the public and private sectors. Research is needed on error analyses 

and confidence measures for analyzing massive data sets, on the determination of causality 

from data, on better understanding neural network models and their construction, on wid· 

ening studies of machine learning to consider the larger decision making pipelines that they 

support, and on tools and methods that enable interactive data visualization and explora· 

tion. Attention should be paid to supporting data stewardship to mitigate losses of data and 

associated opportunities for machine learning, inference, and longitudinal studies. 

PCAST recommends that 

NSF, in collaboration with mission agencies that collect large amounts of data for 

R&D, should continue to sponsor research on methods for performing inference, 

prediction, and other forms of analysis of data to advance all areas of science and 

engineering, and on methods for the collection, management, preservation, and use 

of data. Emphasis should be placed on formulating and disseminating methods for 

representing and propagating error analyses and confidence measures in largescale data analysis; developing the theory and practice of computational and statistical methods for causal discovery from large data sets; developing deeper under· 

standings of the foundations of neural network models and of systems challenges 

with scaling up these methods; uses of machine learning to guide decision making; 

and human understanding of large data sets and the results of their analysis. 

NITRD, through its Big Data R&D SSG, should work to establish a common set of best 

practices and support structures for data capture, curation, management, and access. The NITRD Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council 

(NSTC) should encourage uniform adoption of these policies through the NITRD 

membership. 

Foundational IT Research: All of the paradigm-shifting achievements in information tech· 

nology that we enjoy today rest on years, and sometimes decades, of foundational IT research. Areas such as advances in computer architecture, domain-specific languages, algorithm development, scalable and reliable software systems, networking, machine learning, 

artificial intelligence technologies, and more will provide for the next generation of IT ad· 

vances. Foundational long-term research in information technology is essential for the application areas that build on it, and for the future of the Nation's robust IT industry. 

6 
50 

PCAST recommends that 

NSF should continue to invest in long-term foundational research in information technology. Other NITRD agencies, including DARPA, IARPA, DOE, and NIH, should support 

foundational research in those aspects of IT that most affect their missions. 

Education and Training 

Education and training directly impact the nation's ability to create new innovations and to 

translate them into products and services. To satisfy the growing need for IT expertise, education and training are needed at multiple levels, from highly skilled researchers and practitioners to users of conventional IT tools and methods. Special efforts are needed to ensure 

that a large and diverse population of young students enters the pipeline, and that the pipeline-leakage is minimized. Strong lifelong learning programs are needed to help workers to 

keep up with technological change. Well-prepared teachers are essential to maintaining an 

educational pipeline. Although it is the states and the private sector that provide most education and training, it is essential that the Federal government lead in designing educational 

programs, tools, and technologies that enable IT learning and education. 

PCAST recommends that: 

The NITRO Subcommittee, working in partnership with NSF, ED, and the private 

sector, should create new educational opportunities in IT at all levels, beginning 

with K-12, to grow the pipeline of skilled workers and identify future innovators 

and leaders. These programs should incorporate approaches that will engage underrepresented populations. 

As part of that effort, NSF should lead the development and implementation of model programs for pre- college students that attract the most talented young people to 

study IT. These will be the future innovators and leaders. The program should be 

designed to address differences in gender, economic status, and cultural background, and to collaborate with industry to provide resources to expand these programs broadly in the U.S. education system. 

NSF and ED should create programs for training and retraining of workers at all age 

levels with the goal of providing targeted "on-ramps" for those individuals to develop careers in the IT industry. They should fund research that includes the creation 

and assessment of the best ways to enable students to learn those concepts. The 

agencies should work with the academic community to determine and continuously 

update the appropriate concepts and with external partners to deploy these programs and capture data on performance and outcomes. 

NITRD Coordination 

The working group reviewed how the 18 member agencies in the NITRO Program invest 

their contributions to efficiently and effectively expand cross-government research and development. Budgetary Program Component Areas (PCAs) are the investment amounts in 

technical areas of interest that are tracked for record keeping and budget analysis. OSTB 

and OMB introduced the initial set of PCAs in 1995, and many of them have remained virtu7 
51 

ally unchanged despite the evolution of the scientific and technical fields in IT as described 

above. PCAST found strong support in OSTP and OMB to establish a process to update the 

PCAs periodically to ensure PCAs align with current priorities in IT fields. In the report, the 

working group proposes eight new PCAs beginning in FY 2017 and recommends updating 

them every 5 or 6 years. 

PCAST recommends that: 

OSTP, NCO, and the NITRO Subcommittee, in collaboration with OMB, should revise 

the PCAs for the FY 2017 Budget cycle and beyond to reflect both the current nature 

of IT and the major national priorities in which IT plays a major role. 

Those four stakeholders should create a process to review the PCAs every five to six 

years and implement proposed modifications. PCAST or its PITAC subcommittee 

should provide recommendations for changes to the PCAs. 

The NITRO Program includes multi-agency focus groups ("Groups") that traditionally had 

been aligned with (PCAs). In addition to new PCAs, this report highlights the continued 

need to de-couple the NITRO Groups from the PCAs so that the NlTRD Groups can be modernized independently of the PCAs. This review also found very little understanding or documentation of the processes by which Groups of all kinds are created, evaluated, and retired. IT has clearly evolved over the last twenty-five years and NITRD organization needs 

to evolve in response. As a result of these findings, PCAST recommends changes to the 

Groups to help realign the coordination structure. 

PCAST recommends that: 

The NITRO Subcommittee, in collaboration with the NSTC and OSTP, should establish specific language specifying what the purpose of each type of Group is and what 

mechanisms should be used to establish, monitor and terminate a Group. They 

should define a process to create a new Group, set its charter, and specify its correspondences with existing PCAs. 

The NITRO Subcommittee, in collaboration with NCO and OSTP, should define a process and timeline for periodic review of each Group, with a recommendation for 

continuation, modification, or sunset. A process for acting on those recommendations should be defined and executed. Reports on these reviews should be provided 

for each NITRO Review. 

Each Group at the Senior Steering level should coordinate a process to publish and 

publicly discuss periodically a research and coordination plan for its area of interest. 

Overarching Themes and Observations 

The review noted several cross-cutting themes within the many research areas that were 

reviewed. 

The working group noted that an increasing spectrum of areas of IT span the continuum 

from basic conceptual foundations, to system building, hypothesis testing, and experimentation, to innovative engineering, to real-world usage via first-mover applications, and finally 

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52 

to translation into common practice. As a result, increased coordination and collaboration 

between fundamental research programs and mission agencies is an important means to 

facilitate that translation of fundamental research to practice. Likewise, academiagovernment-industry partnerships (sometimes termed public-private partnerships) will 

continue to play an important role. Indeed, a growing number of academic research areas 

require access to production-quality platforms, large data sets, large-scale infrastructure, or 

large numbers of representative users resources that are increasingly developed within 

the private sector. 

Second, the working group noted that the IT research and education community is under 

increasing stress. Researchers face continuing tension when choosing between short-term, 

problem-solving research and the riskier, more speculative long-term investigations. Funding pressures and publication practices in IT- related disciplines are making it more difficult 

to sustain the long-term research that is an essential component of a strong and balanced 

research ecosystem. In addition, as knowledge in certain research areas grows and the applicability of that area broadens, the demand for workers in that field increases faster than 

the education system can prepare workers. In a growing number of instances, academic research organizations are competing with private-sector companies for skilled people, at all 

levels, including both potential graduate students and current faculty. This places the nation's long-term research capabilities at risk by "eating our seed corn." 

Finally, the working group found that Research in IT is increasingly interdisciplinary, requiring larger and more diverse research teams and researchers who can create and lead 

multi-disciplinary research teams. 

In conclusion, the founding goal of the NITRO program was to coordinate federal investments in computing research to ensure wise investment of taxpayer dollars. PCAST found 

that the NITRO leadership manages coordination and information-sharing through the NITRO Subcommittee and Groups and that the NITRO subcommittee and the National Coordinating Office (NCO) have established an important community in the Federal government. 

The growing breadth and impact of computing research further reinforces the need to leverage government investments by engaging the broadest possible spectrum of agencies 

throughout the federal government. PCAST strongly supports the mission and role of NITRO, and finds that NITRO leadership across the community is essential to lead change so 

that NITRO continues to achieve the strategic technical or policy vision that is in the best 

interests of the program and the country. 

I would like to again thank the committee for this opportunity to report the findings of the 

report of the NITRD working group. I was honored to be chosen to co-chair the working 

group, I fully endorse its findings and recommendations, and I stand ready to help the 

committee in efforts to advance computing research to enhance the long-term competitiveness of our nation. 

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53 

Biography of Dr. Gregory D. Hager 

Gregory D. Hager is the Mandell Bellmore Professor of Computer Science at Johns 

Hopkins University. Professor Hager received his BA in Mathematics and Computer 

Science Summa Cum Laude at Luther College (1983}, and his MS (1986} and PhD (1988} 

from the University of Pennsylvania. He was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of 

Karlsruhe, and was on the faculty of Yale University prior to joining Johns Hopkins. 

Professor Hager joined the department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University 

in 1999. He has served as the deputy director of the NSF Engineering Research Center 

for Surgical Systems and Technology, and he served as Chair of Computer Science from 

2010-2015. 

Professor Hager's research interests include collaborative and vision-based robotics, 

time-series analysis of image data, and medical applications of image analysis and 

robotics. He has published over 300 articles and books in these areas. He is also Chair of 

the Computing Community Consortium, a board member of the Computing Research 

Association, and is a member of the governing board of the International Federation of 

Robotics Research. In 2014, he was awarded a Hans Fischer Fellowship in the Institute of 

Advanced Study of the Technical University of Munich where he also holds an 

appointment in Computer Science. He has served on the editorial boards of IEEE TRO, 

IEEE PAM I, and IJCV. He is a fellow of the IEEE for his contributions to Vision-Based 

Robotics and a Fellow of the MICCAI Society for his contributions to imaging and his 

work on the analysis of surgical technical skill. 

Professor Hager is the founding CEO of Clear Guide Medical. 
54 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you, Dr. Hager. 

I now recognize Dr. Seidel. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. EDWARD SEIDEL, DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL CENTER FOR SUPERCOMPUTING APPLICATIONS, 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 

Dr. SEIDEL. Thank you. Good morning, Chairwoman Comstock, 

Ranking Member Lipinski, Mand embers of the Subcommittee, 

thank you for the chance to participate in this important discussion. 

I am Professor Ed Seidel, the Director of NCSA at the University 

of Illinois. I previously served at the National Science Foundation 

as the Assistant Director for the Directorate for Mathematical and 

Physical Sciences and also as the Director of the Office of Cyber Infrastructure. In those capacities I also co-chaired subcommittees 

under OSTP’s Committees on Science and on Technology. I’m also 

very familiar with the importance to the nation of networking information technology, or NIT, across all areas of research and with 

the National Strategic Computing Initiative, or NSCI, and its importance in maintaining American competitiveness and research 

and in economic development. Indeed, I can think of no other single 

initiative that has as much potential to support and maintain U.S. 

leadership in research and innovation. 

I would first like to outline some critical trends in science, engineering and industrial research that must guide federal investments in NIT. First, as more complex problems in science and society are addressed, R&D is increasingly collaborative and interdisciplinary. How do drugs interact with a virus? How can jet engines be made more efficient? Answers will require integration of 

expertise from many areas of science and engineering and from big 

data and from multiple instruments and big computing. All are 

needed, and such problems do not respect disciplinary, nor agency 

boundaries. 

Second, complex problems are increasingly computational and 

data-intensive requiring integration of large-scale computing facilities and data from many observation systems and instruments. 

Without this, many problems are beyond the reach of the nation’s 

current capabilities. 

Activities at the center that I direct, NCSA, beautifully illustrate 

these trends. Funded by many agencies, NCSA leads the two largest single computing investments from the NSF accounting for over 

half-a-billion dollars. The Blue Waters supercomputer, the most 

powerful in the academic world, provides unique science capabilities to over a thousand researchers across the nation. And I have 

a book here just hot off the presses that has dozens and dozens of 

projects that are being done on machines like Blue Waters and others that can’t be done in any other way. 

The XSEDE project also provides advanced digital services for resources at many other national computing and data sites. Together, 

these highly oversubscribed facilities support over a billion dollars 

worth of externally funded research projects, only about half of 

which come from the National Science Foundation with the remainder coming from NIH, DOE, NASA, and others. 
55 

NCSA is also building data services for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope funded jointly by the NSF and the DOE at close to 

a billion dollars. This revolutionary telescope will produce data at 

rates never before seen in the history of astronomy, and NCSA will 

play the primary role in hosting, processing, and serving data to 

the nation’s science communities. 

Such 21st century investments—in this case, a telescope—are 

huge data-generators and they need huge computers. They are 

merely peripherals to the computing infrastructure needed for 

science. Costing upwards of a billion dollars each, such instruments 

are more silicon than they are steel, and they need to be a part of 

the overall ecosystem of national information technology investments. 

Underlying all of this in this era of big data and computing, in 

order to maintain U.S. competitiveness in research and innovation, 

the NSCI is desperately needed. A whole-of-government effort is required with deep coordination across the spectrum of agencies, 

their communities, and digital methodologies. The NSCI rightly 

singled out NSF in a key integrative role in this broad ecosystem. 

In August, PCAST made recommendations regarding NITRD and 

NCO that I agree with, and I am confident that the current leadership will do an outstanding job acting on these recommendations, 

enabling them to play a major role in coordinating federal NIT investments. 

Beyond the PCAST recommendations, however, I would urge the 

Committee to consider three points: First, highly compute- and 

data-intensive instruments should be a part of the overall portfolio 

of NIT coordination. Each such instrument is typically more expensive than the largest single computing facilities with computing, 

networking, and data investments comparable to those of the largest HPC centers, yet they are often not coordinated with the rest 

of the system and they need to be. 

Two, being science-driven, coordinating federal investment in 

NIT should involve organizations beyond NITRD, including groups 

under the Committee on Science. These science communities cut 

across all disciplines, they are funded by many agencies, and they 

are driving the integration of computing, data, and networking, 

and they need to be deeply involved. 

And finally, new funding vehicles for large NIT investments that 

are designed to be more coordinated may also be needed. For example, NSF’s MREFC vehicle for funding large facilities and DOE’s 

CD process are used successfully to fund major instruments. One 

should examine whether such vehicles could be adapted for multiagency coordination. 

Thank you for giving me the chance to testify. I hope that I can 

help realize the great vision of research and innovation vital to the 

nation that I think we all share. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Seidel follows:] 
56 

BEFORE THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

H. Edward Seidel 

Director, National Center for Supercomputing 

Applications (NCSA) 

Founder Professor of Physics, Professor of Astronomy 

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

28 October 2015 

Washington, DC 

Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski, and members of the 

Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to participate in this important 

discussion today. 

I am currently Director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications 

(NCSA) and Founder Professor of Physics and Professor of Astronomy at the 

University of Illinois. I have previously served as the NSF Assistant Director for 

Mathematical and Physical Sciences (2009-2012) and Director of NSF's Office of 

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57 

Cyberinfrastructure (2008-2010). During that period I oversaw in excess of $5 

billion in NSF investments in mathematical and physical sciences (including major 

infrastructure investments such as telescopes, light sources and other Major 

Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) projects) as well as in 

HPC, Software, Networking, and Data and related education and science application 

investments. In this context, and of specific relevance to this hearing, I was an initial 

co-chair in 2011 of the NITRO Senior Steering Group on Big Data under OSTP's 

Committee on Technology, that led to the March, 2012 Presidential Big Data 

Initiative. I was also the co-chair of both the Physical Sciences Steering Committee 

(PSSC) and the Quantum Information Science Interagency Working Group (QIS IWG) 

under OSTP's Committee on Science, so I am very familiar with the working of the 

relevant groups. I have also worked in senior science and administrative positions 

in international research organizations in Germany and Russia, and have served as 

an advisor to international funding agencies, so I have a good overview of the US 

role, and its position, in the international context. 

Currently, in my role as NCSA Director, I am responsible for an organization that 

leads the two single largest NSF investments in high-end computing and data 

analysis and their applications to science and engineering: 

• The NSF Blue Waters supercomputer, the most powerful supercomputer in 

the academic world, is a facility representing over $400 million in combined 

NSF and Illinois investments, providing unique science capabilities to over a 

thousand researchers from across the nation, in more than 200 projects, 

funded separately, across all areas of science, engineering, and industry R&D. 

Blue Waters enables breakthrough research that requires computing and 

analysis at scales that simply cannot be done at other NSF-supported 

computing sites (or nearly any other facility in the nation or the world)l. 

• The XSEDE project, representing more than $130 million in NSF funding over 

5 years for services that enable science communities to take advantage of 

HPC and other computing and data analysis resources at most other NSFsupported advanced computing sites across the nation. The $130 million 

figure is only for integrated services to use computing and data facilities that 

are themselves funded separately at a half-dozen sites across the country. 

Likewise, the users of these services have research projects that are funded 

separately by numerous agencies. 

It is important to note that these two computing projects, Blue Waters and XSEDE, 

support research projects whose research is funded (separately) not only by NSF, 

but also by many federal agencies. The XSEDE project reported that in its third 

project year, July 2013 -June 2014, it provided computing services to nearly $800 

million dollars worth of federally funded research projects, roughly half of which 

1 A supplemental document describing dozens of research projects carried out on 

Blue Waters, funded by numerous agencies (e.g., NSF, DOE, NIH, etc.) and also by 

industry, is provided. 

2 
58 

came from NSF, about 18% came from NIH, with DOE, DOD, NASA contributing just 

under 10% each to this figure. Likewise, Blue Waters supports over $500 million 

dollars in research by teams funded by many agencies. I will come back to this trend 

below. 

It is also important to note that the NSF XSEDE and Blue Waters facilities are highly 

oversubscribed, with requests for computing time exceeding what can be 

accommodated by factors of 4-5x or more. Because all science and engineering 

research progress is now intricately dependent on computing and data analysis, the 

pressure from research groups to use these facilities is increasing, while funding for 

these facilities has been essentially flat (or even slightly declining by some 

estimates) for more than the last decade. This puts science teams in difficult 

positions because their funding is independent of being allocated the computing and 

data analysis resources they need to carry out their research programs. 

As with all major national computing centers, NCSA too is deeply engaged in 

numerous "big data" projects, illustrating a key point: big data and big computing 

go hand-in-hand; one is intrinsically integrated with the other. Hence a third project, 

an instrument project of the type not mentioned in the PCAST report, needs to be 

highlighted: 

• NCSA is responsible for producing the data services pipeline for the Large 

Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), under construction for "first light" shortly 

after the beginning of the next decade. This telescope, funded jointly by NSF 

and DOE (construction and operating costs for 10 years will well exceed a 

billion dollars), will produce roughly as much data each night as the most 

ambitious previous astronomy survey project did in a decade. It will observe 

as many as a million transient events each night. This will be done by 

collecting enormous amounts of data ---with enormous computing on this 

data---each night. This will need to be combined with data from other 

astronomical instruments, and large-scale supercomputer simulations, in 

order to understand what it and other instruments observe. 

Key Trends in Science and Engineering 

With this background, I have studied the recent (August 2015) PCAST report on 

NITRO and spoken to numerous colleagues in relevant research communities and 

federal agencies, and have several comments and recommendations to make to this 

subcommittee. But first I would like to focus on critical trends in science, 

engineering and industrial research, which must be the guiding force for any related 

federal investments in NIT. Implicit in the above discussion, some trends are critical 

to the subcommittee's topic of interest: 

• While breakthrough research continues to be done by small groups of 

researchers, increasingly, one finds interdisciplinary teams of researchers, 

from multiple disciplines, and often funded by multiple agencies, working 

together on complex problems in science and society (including in industry). 

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59 

Such problems are beyond the reach of any individual group, discipline, or 

approach (e.g., theory, computation, experiment, etc.). A recent NRC report 

entitled "Facilitating Transdisciplinary Integration of Life Sciences, Physical 

Sciences, Engineering, and Beyond (2014)" speaks to these trends. 

• These problems---across all domains---are increasingly computational and 

data-intensive, often requiring large-scale computing/analysis facilities and 

data from experiments, observation systems, and instruments. The demand is 

growing rapidly and across all areas. For example, the NSF Directorate for 

Social, Economic, and Behavioral Sciences (SBE) now uses as much 

computing time on NSF advanced computing facilities as the (much larger) 

Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate did just a decade ago. 

Further, many such problems are beyond the reach of the nation's current 

computing and data capabilities, so that one must downscale the problem (to 

the scale of "toy problems", as described in the PCAST report) to fit available 

facilities. While insights may be achieved by studying simple versions of realworld problems, the real-world impact may be lost. 

• Data has become a de facto currency of research, both enabling quantitative 

description of research results, and enabling communication and therefore 

collaboration between researchers (and the public) at scales never before 

possible. The recent discovery of the Higgs boson was possible only because 

teams of thousands of scientists were able to collaborate via sharing of data 

collected at the experiment, and by aggregating computing capability across 

hundreds of sites worldwide. 

• New software is needed for researchers to be productive on high-end 

computing and data systems, and to enable complex problem solving. A 

recent workshop (October, 2015) sponsored by NITRO "Computational 

Science & Engineering Software Sustainability and Productivity Challenges" 

bought together a number of agencies to discuss pressing issues around 

software requirements, high-productivity software engineering, 

reproducibility, software maintenance processes, and scalable, reusable, and 

portable software system architectures. 

• Major instruments, such as telescopes, light sources, accelerators, ecological 

observing systems, highly instrumented and computerized ships, and so on, 

are required to do scientific research. Outside the sc.ope of the small grants 

programs that fund many research groups at NSF, DOE and other agencies, 

these major investments usually take a decade or more to build and easily 

exceed a billion dollars to construct and operate. Nowadays, these 

instruments are fully digital, require hundreds of millions of dollars of 

investments in computing, data, and networking infrastructure, and serve 

many communities funded by many agencies. Both the instruments, and the 

networks required to transport data to computing facilities and communities 

that use them, are often neglected in the ecosystem under discussion. This 

must be addressed (see below). 

4 
60 

As is implicit in the above discussion, the problems under study do not respect 

either disciplinary boundaries or agency boundaries. Federal NIT investments from 

many agencies must therefore be coherently coordinated if research communities 

addressing such complex problem to succeed. NIT systems, including systems such as 

digital instruments that also serve many communities, must be part of this ecosystem. 

The definition of what is an NIT system changes almost as fast as the technology 

itself, and hence the coordinating process must be nimble and updated frequently. 

Further, as the computing and data needs of "nontraditional NIT agencies", e.g., NIH, 

grow rapidly, they may soon find that, due to increasing demand and shortage of 

supply, they are unable to acquire the resources they need from other agencies, e.g., 

DOE and NSF, unless sufficient coordination, planning, and shared investments are 

made across all relevant agencies. 

While the above discussion has been focused on research facing the nation's 

research communities, similar trends are found in industry. Like many of the 

nation's HPC centers, NCSA operates a vigorous Private Sector Partner program. Our 

program has over two-dozen partners who use our facilities and work closely with 

our expert staff, affiliated faculty and students to improve their methods, products 

and competiveness. Their needs reflect the same trends described above, and more. 

They are addressing real-world problems that require realistic, timely real-world 

solutions that can have tremendous impact on the US economy. For example, one of 

our private sector partners estimates that a lOOPFlop system with appropriate 

software and algorithms, would enable simulations to improve jet engine efficiency. 

Merely a 1% improvement would save tens of billions of dollars in the US economy. 

We have similar discussions with our partners regarding agriculture, energy, 

transportation and other areas. Hence, while industry requires results sometimes 

on quarterly time scales, it also requires partnerships with federally funded NIT 

research on decadal time scales as well. 

The need for a National Strategic Computing Initiative 

In July 2015, the President issued an Executive Order (EO) that instructed federal 

agencies to work together in an "all of government", 15-year effort to launch the 

National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI). Within this EO, agencies were given 

specific roles, for example, NSF, DOE and DOD as "leadership" agencies, with NASA, 

NOAA, NIH, FBI, DHS singled out as "deployment" agencies that should work with 

other agencies to develop efforts needed for their missions. The role of industry 

was also highlighted. Indeed, some of the most articulate members of the small 

invited panel present at the White House event to unveil the NSCI were from 

industry. 

Of the roles singled out by the EO, the NSF was given the most comprehensive 

responsibilities, including the central role in scientific discovery advances, a 

continuing role in leadership in advanced computing, especially the broader HPC 

ecosystem for scientific discovery, and workforce development. NSF is also leading 

the efforts to define computing and analysis post Moore's Law. NSF therefore needs 

5 
61 

to play a special role in the coordination and integration. However, it is neither 

funded nor staffed adequately to fulfill these roles by itself. It will need help, as will 

all agencies. 

I can say that there was a sense of relief, if not joy, in the broader research and 

industry communities when this announcement was made. Given the above 

discussion, it should be clear that the national need for such an effort, cutting across 

agencies and industry alike, is huge. In order to be effective (to be measured by the 

impact it has on the research communities that demand it) NSCI will require both: 

• Continued and increased investments in the entire NIT ecosystem, which 

needs to broadened to include major digital instruments and their 

coordination and integration where warranted with other NIT systems. 

• Increased effort and assistance in coordination across agencies, which is 

often difficult for agencies to do, even when they are in agreement that such 

coordination is necessary. 

A key point implicit in the above is this: with the vast majority of the research and 

development activities of our age requiring major developments in computing, 

networking, and software, not only will more investment in the NIT infrastructure be 

needed, it must be invested in a more coherent way. While not lowering the overall 

investment numbers themselves, a more coherent and coordinated approach will 

not only better serve the nation's R&D communities, each of which may need access 

to major HPC facilities, observation systems, and instruments, but it could also lead 

to savings of individual investments. Considerable synergies could be realized if 

advanced computing facilities were deeply involved in the planning of construction 

of major instruments, such as telescopes or light sources, which are themselves 

highly digital. For example, a recent collaboration between the XSEDE project and 

NSF's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) saved an 

estimated $70 million in computing costs. Even more important, the basic function 

of these instruments will require advanced computing, data, and networking services 

in order to function at all. In the words of Larry Smarr, "these instruments are more 

silicon than steel." 

The role ofNITRD and other groups in coordinating federal investments 

Clearly, given the above testimony, federal investments in NIT need to be not only 

coordinated, but made in the most coherent possible way in order to serve research 

and industry communities across all areas of science and engineering. The agencies 

themselves do work earnestly to address some of these issues, and in some cases do 

an excellent job, especially if the future of a project essential to their research 

communities requires cooperation, and most critically if it cannot be funded within 

individual agency budgets. 

For example, NSF and DOE have numerous projects that require joint funding, and 

they have developed mechanisms to accomplish this. For small programs, MOUs 

6 
62 

may be developed between agencies that are then competed and managed 

collaboratively. For large construction projects, such as the LSST project described 

above, the Dark Energy Survey, detectors at the Large Hadron Collider, and others 

carefully coordinated investments of hundreds of millions of dollars are required. 

Where appropriate, NSF utilizes its "MREFC" process, while DOE utilized its "CD" 

process, and a careful and rigorous mapping has been made by the agencies to 

synchronize them appropriately. 

While such deep, joint coordination happens as needed in major construction 

projects, it rarely happens in the area of NIT (with the exception of the large 

construction projects that are themselves increasingly NIT projects, e.g., the LSST). 

The nation's research communities increasingly require this, as evidenced by the 

figures above, where, e.g., the NSF-funded XSEDE HPC program is used as much by 

non-NSF funded research groups as it is by NSF-funded groups. The NSCI further 

requires that agencies work together to address these problems. 

NITRO and the NCO have a clear responsibility to play a major role in coordinating 

federal NIT investments, and they must. In the past, NITRO has not been as effective 

as it might be in doing so, for many reasons. Agency personnel are very busy, and 

they have historically served complementary communities, and have a culture of 

taking care of their own interests and typically a mandate to serve their own 

missions. When agency investments are tallied up in various "Program Component 

Areas" (PCAs), these are sometimes done in inconsistent ways. 

NITRO has often b_een an important forum for information sharing, but with little 

authority or funding of its own, its role in ensuring coherent investments has been 

limited. Further, it is largely a technology organization, coming under the OSTP 

Committee on Technology. The underlying trends in science and engineering, as 

described above, are driven by science communities, coordinated by the OSTP 

Committee on Science (and I have served on subcommittees for both CoT and CoS). 

Further, although computing and data analysis technology changes on very short 

time scales, as noted by the August, 2015 PCAST report, the PCAs have not changed 

since their inception twenty years ago in 1995. 

In the recent PCAST review of NITRO, many excellent suggestions were made to 

address some of these issues, which I believe will go a long way in improving the 

effectiveness. Among them, specific recommendations to create a more modern set 

of PCAs, as well as specific recommendations to address the functioning of NCOguided Groups (e.g., Senior Steering Groups (SSG) and Interagency Working Groups 

(IWGs)), will be helpful. 

However, there are points that do not seem to receive much attention that I would 

urge to be further considered. Chief among them, I include: 

• Highly compute- and data-intensive instruments should be considered in the 

portfolio of NIT coordination. The focus of the PCAST report (and of NITRO 

itself) is largely and perhaps naturally on NIT itself, defined as it applies to 

7 
63 

various activities of cybersecurity, high end computing, and so on. This 

leaves out a most critical aspect of current research trends, namely that 

major instruments such as light sources, observing systems (e.g., 

astronomical, ecological, etc), genomic sequencers and accelerators, serve 

many communities across many disciplines, funded by many agencies, and 

they are themselves major investments in cyberinfrastructure. These should 

not be considered as an afterthought but rather as a first class citizen in the 

NIT portfolio. Each such instrument is typically more expensive than the 

largest single computing facilities, with computing, networking, and data 

investments comparable to those at the largest HPC centers, frequently with 

duplication of many elements. These are not often coordinated with the rest 

of the ecosystem, but need to be. 

• Coordinating federal investments in NIT need to involve organizations beyond 

NITRD, including but not limited to, groups under the Committee on Science. 

The research communities themselves are driving much of the convergence 

described above. They cut across disciplines, they are funded by many 

agencies, and they increasingly are driving the integration of computing, 

data, networking, and instruments to address their research. Yet these 

communities are not well-represented by NITRD groups, which come under 

the Committee on Technology. The Committee on Science represents some 

of these more effectively. A broader set of organizations must be considered 

if better coordinated and more coherent NIT investments are to serve 

research and industry communities. 

Finally, if the NSCI is to truly become an initiative that serves the above trends in 

science, engineering, and industry, not only will additional funding and better 

coordination be needed to keep the US in the forefront of research and economic 

competitiveness, but new funding vehicles for large NIT investments, designed to be 

more deeply coordinated, may also be needed. For example, NSF's MREFC vehicle 

for funding large facilities and DOE's CD process are used successfully to fund major 

instruments. One should examine whether such vehicles could be adapted for multiagency, coordinated, sustained investment in major computing, data, and 

networking facilities, that typically also have shorter lifecycles, and applied to other 

agencies, e.g., NASA and NIH, as well. 

8 
64 

H. Edward Seidel, NCSA Director 

NCSA director H. Edward Seidel is a distinguished researcher in high-performance 

computing and relativity and astrophysics with an outstanding track record as a 

researcher and administrator. In addition to leading NCSA, he is also a Founder Professor 

in the University of Illinois Department of Physics and a professor in the Department of 

Astronomy. 

His previous leadership roles include serving as the senior vice president of research and 

innovation at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow, directing the 

Office of Cyberinfrastructure and serving as assistant director for Mathematical and 

Physical Sciences at the U.S. National Science Foundation, and leading the Center for 

Computation & Technology at Louisiana State University. 

Seidel is a fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for 

the Advancement of Science, as well as a member of the Institute of Electrical and 

Electronics Engineers, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. His 

research has been recognized by a number of awards, including the 2006 IEEE Sidney 

Fembach Award. 

He earned a master's degree in physics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1983 and a 

doctorate in relativistic astrophysics at Yale University in 1988. 
65 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you so much. Thank all of you. 

It is fascinating work that you all do, so I appreciate the opportunity to discuss it this morning with you. 

And without objection, we have the statement of Dr. Kenneth 

Ball from George Mason University, which will also be included in 

the record. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Ball appears in Appendix II] 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. So I now recognize myself for five minutes for questions, and we’ll proceed with our others here. 

I want to ask all of you to tell us how we can have more interface 

between academia, industry, and government. What is the ecosystem here and how do we sort of get more bang for our buck? 

It’s all being utilized in a more efficient way but, how are we getting all of these things on a faster track. Do you have any thoughts 

on how we might better get industry engagement? 

Dr. MARZULLO. I’ll start. I do want to note that in NITRD we actually have a fairly broad reach into industry, and we do it in a 

few ways. One is through workshops. For example, in the wireless 

area, wireless spectrum research and development, they’ve been 

running a series of workshops, seven of them, which have been 

looking at all the issues dealing with the access of this limited resource, this spectrum sharing. And these workshops are attended 

by people from industry, academics, and government people. So in 

these workshops, for example, we’ve got people from T–Mobile, 

Microsoft, Agilent, Vanu, Comsearch, Qualcomm. So we have a 

reach into that. 

Similarly, in our Cyber Physical Systems Senior Steering Group, 

one of the efforts being run by NIST, the Global City Teams Challenge, has been forming partnerships of industry, academics, and 

communities to look at cyber-physical smart cities, smart communities. And through the CPS Senior Steering Group, because of the 

coordination we do, NSF jumped in to help participate in those efforts. And so that’s another path in. 

We also have a couple of groups, the Joint Engineering Team, 

which looks at information sharing among federal agencies in scientific networking. We have another one called MAGIC, which is 

our Middleware and Grid, and these also involve industry. They 

come and talk with us. Microsoft, Verizon, and Cisco have been 

members. 

So I think we are reaching out. We can do more but I think we 

are reaching out. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. All right. Thank you. And, Dr. Hager? 

Dr. HAGER. So I was thinking about, you know, the different perspectives on industry, academic, government interaction, and perhaps I can give you a couple of different views of that. So, as you 

know the IT industry is tremendously impetuous almost in its development of new technologies. And so the topics and the directions 

change quickly. 

That being said, there’s a tremendous interaction at the grassroots level among academic researchers and industry. And that’s 

really through students moving back and forth with industry, as 

well as some collaborative projects with industry. You have to understand many companies do not have industrial research labs any-
66 

more in the IT industry, and so it really is very much a grassroots 

level interaction. 

I will, however, highlight—picking up on Dr. Marzullo’s response 

that several venues where we do bring together government, industry, and academic researchers. So I also chair the Computing Community Consortium. And in the—that consortium we hold visioning 

workshops where we talk about new topics in computing, and we 

always have representation from industry, government, and academic researchers. So there is a conversation and there is a connection even if it may not be immediately visible from the highest levels. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Okay. 

Dr. SEIDEL. Yes, thanks for the question. 

I can give you a couple of different answers. So from my present 

post as the Director of NCSA, I can say we have many, many deep 

interactions with companies. We have a private sector program 

that has over two dozen companies that actually pay to be members of our consortium, and we work very deeply with them. Some 

of them—Caterpillar has been there for over 30 years. And when 

the original NSF supercomputing program started in 1985–86 in 

that period, the NCSA leadership at the time took out a full page 

ad in the Wall Street Journal and said we are open for business. 

And that led to a lot of industrial relationships with the University 

of Illinois and has actually led to an entire industrial park that is 

now just south of campus. And those relationships continue. 

In the present day when the National Strategic Computing Initiative was announced, I was invited to the Eisenhower Executive 

Office Building for a little discussion on that, and I would say over 

half of the participants in the room were from industry. And some 

of the most passionate members of that panel talked about the 

need, for example, to have large-scale computing investments at 

the federal level so that they would be able to do things that they 

can’t do otherwise. 

For example, jet engine development, a mere one percent increase in the efficiency, which would require supercomputing at the 

level of, say, 10 to 100 times what we have now in order to really 

do that sort of work well, would allow tens of billions of dollars in 

savings in the airline industry for fuel costs, for example. So there 

are lots of examples where we work together with industry. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. And I think any time and 

any place you can help us assist with telling that story, so people 

really understand the multiplier effect of all the research that is 

going on and how it’s integrated into everything that we see. So 

thank you very much. 

And I yield five minutes to Mr. Lipinski. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. I just want to follow up on a couple 

things there. And, Dr. Seidel, I’ve been to U of I and seen what 

you’ve done there by having these industries come in. And it’s great 

to see and it’s great to hear all these examples of how industry has 

really benefitted. So as we move forward, I think we’ll have to have 

further discussions on how we can make sure that we get them involved in making sure that this NITRD works as well as it can. 

But I wanted to ask Dr. Marzullo, you had talked about this— 

mentioned this at least in your answer to the Chairwoman’s ques-
67 

tion, but I wanted to get a little bit—talk a little bit more about 

the smart cities and connected communities, multiagency framework. Can you tell us more about this and how are the private sector and city governments themselves involved in this? 

Dr. MARZULLO. Mr. Lipinski, thank you for the question. The 

Global Cities Team Challenge was an effort that was started by 

NIST, and it happened at about the same time that the National 

Science Foundation was looking at ways to frame their efforts in 

cyber-physical systems. Cyber-physical systems are these complex 

systems that are—involve the physical world, people, and computation. And a natural partnership grew out between the two. The 

NIST has been working on a framework for cyber-physical systems 

and NSF has been looking at the foundational aspects. 

So there was a partnership that sprung up being led by NIST, 

Chris Greer, to build these kinds of projects that tied together communities like Montgomery County, researchers, and companies 

small and large in developing innovative approaches to smart city 

problems. And then the National Science Foundation used its own 

ability to reach into its own researchers to help motivate them into 

moving into this. 

NSF thought this was a great idea because this also helped form 

a bridge between the research that was going on to industry in 

terms of applications. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Very good. I want to turn in my remaining time 

to computing infrastructure. We know that big data and data 

science broadly speaking is becoming a larger part of scientific research with every passing year. But at the same time, research infrastructure in this space, including HPCs like Blue Waters but 

also testbeds and storage for large datasets is increasingly expensive. So how do we weigh the benefits of improving our computing 

infrastructure against the other research priorities for the purposes 

of the NITRD Program? So whoever wants to—would like to jump 

in here. Dr. Seidel? 

Dr. SEIDEL. Yes, thank you. There are—it’s clear that investments in computing impact all areas of science and engineering. So 

the Blue Waters facility is supporting areas from every single directorate at NSF. It’s very interesting to note that even in the social sciences, which you wouldn’t think of as being highly computational, they’re using as much——— 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Oh, I understand they’re highly computational. 

Dr. SEIDEL. They’re using—I know you—that’s correct. But many 

of them are using—that community—that directorate is using as 

much computing time as the Math and Physical Sciences Directorate did just ten years ago. So it’s in every single area. And so 

the point is that investments in these areas can really impact all 

other areas, and they’re fundamental to them. They can’t do their 

work without them. So I think that’s one of the issues to be thinking about when you’re thinking about how to distribute budgets. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. Dr. Hager? 

Dr. HAGER. So I guess I would echo Dr. Seidel’s remarks. As we 

see the field evolving, we’re seeing that data is playing a larger and 

larger role across many, many areas, and it’s clearly going to continue along those lines. I would note that, you know, other nations—for example, Japan—has a much more advanced capability 
68 

broadly in data-intensive computing and high-performance computing than the United States currently does. And clearly, they see 

a value in investing in that area. 

So it is an important area. I agree the investments have to be 

weighed against the impact that they are making in these other 

areas, but they are the infrastructure upon which many, many 

areas build. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Dr. Marzullo, do you have anything to add? 

Dr. MARZULLO. I’ll just add a brief note here in my time that the 

groups within NITRD often talk about infrastructure investments, 

and they find ways to try to help increase the sharing of them. We 

have a wonderful taxonomy of wireless testbeds, for example, available on our website. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Good. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. 

And I now recognize Mr. LaHood for five minutes. 

Mr. LAHOOD. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to thank the 

witnesses for your testimony today and for your commitment and 

dedication to what you do. 

Dr. Seidel, we appreciate you being here, and thank you for the 

work you do at University of Illinois with our program there. And 

I wanted to just follow up a little bit on your reference to the private sector partner program. You referenced Caterpillar and some 

of the other companies that you work with. 

In terms of kind of the real-world effects of that in terms of product design, competitiveness, and the iForge project, can you talk a 

little bit more about that? And I guess as a follow-up, do you think 

we’re doing enough to highlight what we do in the private sector 

in making people aware of that, and is there room to grow there? 

Dr. SEIDEL. So thank you for the question. 

Just a little bit of background, as I mentioned, we have many 

private sector partners that are focused on using computing to advance their business, and we have a specifically dedicated computing system called iForge that is just for industrial use. So they 

really use that facility in the way that they want to. So we operate 

it for them. They’re members of our program, and so they not only 

use the facility but they use the staff and the expertise, just as important or more important than the facility because computers 

come and go in fairly short timescales. It’s the incredible scientific 

and computing expert staff that we maintain. And all the centers, 

I’m sure, would say the same thing. That’s the most important aspect. 

So they are—and part of the teams that work with industry and 

industry then provides problems for us to work on, whether it’s 

scaling their codes or doing things like engine design or, you know, 

pharmaceutical design and so on, we help them scale their codes 

up to larger and larger processer accounts. And so if they want to 

graduate, say, from the iForge machine, which is much smaller, to 

a Blue Waters machine, which allows them to do things that they 

couldn’t do anywhere else, including in their own homegrown computing facilities where they just don’t have facilities like that—the 

Blue Waters machine is a $200 million facility—then we help them 

make that scaling—make that jump. 
69 

Another thing that we’re doing, though, we’re seeing increasingly 

that there is the concern about big data, and they’re very, very focused on big data. And so there’s a new NSF program called the 

Big Data Hub, which I’m the PI for the so-called Midwest Big Data 

Hub—it’ll be announced next week—and it is about private-public 

partnerships. And we have many, many companies, state organizations, cities, as well as academic organizations all working together 

on this. 

Mr. LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Dr. Hager, I wanted to—you referenced earlier, I guess, in the 

last set of questions about Japan. In terms of U.S. leadership and 

where we are with competitiveness in the world when it comes to 

supercomputing, can you talk a little bit about how we rank worldwide and where we’re at in terms of our competitiveness and looking to the future a little bit and what we need to do to stay where 

we’re at or to improve? 

Dr. HAGER. Thank you for the question. 

So as I’m sure you know, we no longer nationally have the fastest supercomputer in the world. That happens to be in China right 

now. And as I said, there are other nations investing in greater 

computing capacity. So I think it is an important area for the field 

broadly to invest in not just because of what it enables in science 

but also what it enables in technology research. So many of the advances that we see in the broader computing field often start in the 

high-performance computing field and trickle down. 

The other opportunity I’d like to highlight is that, as we develop 

more and more advanced machines, often the challenge is to actually achieve the highest possible performance on those machines. 

And there are some very interesting and very fundamental computing research problems simply to take advantage of the resources 

we have, as well as building greater resources. 

Mr. LAHOOD. And I guess is there—in terms of being—you know, 

continuing on the path we’re on or moving up to compete with 

China, I mean is that strictly a resource issue or is that—are there 

other factors that relate to that? 

Dr. HAGER. Well, certainly, you know, resources are important. 

We can’t succeed without applying substantial resources. 

The technical issues involved in developing the next generation 

of computing, however, are really quite amazing when you start to 

think about, for example, what it would take to build a so-called 

exascale computing engine. There are fundamental physical limitations that we’re running up against. There are architectural limitations that we run up against. It’s not clear that the current technologies that we have—or in fact it is clear the current technologies 

we have simply won’t scale. And so it’s a matter of resources but 

resources applied broadly to achieve breakthroughs in several 

areas in order to advance computing to the next level. 

Mr. LAHOOD. And, last question, do you think we’re prepared to 

go to that next level currently? 

Dr. HAGER. Certainly, we have I think nationally the capability 

to go to that level, the people-resources capability to go to that 

level. I think it’s a matter of investment, focus, and strategic planning to achieve that next set of performance levels. 

Mr. LAHOOD. Thank you. 
70 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. And I now recognize Mr. 

Hultgren for five minutes. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thanks, Madam Chair. 

Thank you all for being here. This is an important subject and 

really appreciate the work that you’re all doing. I think the NITRD 

Program is important and gives federal agencies the ability to better work together in multidisciplinary fashion to tackle the big scientific and technological challenges we are beginning to face. 

Dr. Seidel, it’s very good to see you again. It was so good to be 

at your amazing, literally amazing facility back in April. I still talk 

about that often, and I’ve visited quite a few different wonderful 

sites in Illinois. We do have a proud depth of scientific ecosystem 

in Illinois. But one of the most impressive was being there at Blue 

Waters. So I just want to thank you for your work and encourage 

my colleagues whenever you get the chance to come to ChampaignUrbana to be able to see a phenomenal facility that is absolutely 

having a big impact. So thank you for your work. 

In your written testimony, Dr. Seidel, you mentioned that NCSA 

is deeply engaged in numerous big data projects. I also appreciate 

your discussing the LSST project. I think it’s important for my colleagues to know that this was the number-one on-the-ground priority in the last Planetary Science Decadal Survey. So the work 

you are doing primarily with NSF funding really enables all of our 

other scientific fields. 

With our computational capabilities being what they are today, 

how does the government need to account for what many are calling more of a data-management problem than a computing problem, and would you agree with that assessment? 

Dr. SEIDEL. Thank you very much for all those remarks. 

There are major challenges in data management. That’s for sure. 

I would call it an expanding universe that is growing beyond the 

traditional HPC investments and so on. So it’s a much bigger set 

of problems, and we’re still grappling with them. There are many 

aspects of this from what you do with all the data. So whether it’s 

data that are collected from telescopes or from accelerators or from 

light sources and so on, or the output from supercomputers—you 

have to figure out what to do with all of that—the data are scientifically valuable, and they also have economic value as well. 

And in fact, the entire Materials Genome Initiative that was announced 4 or five years ago—when I was at the NSF, I played a 

role in that—was a lot about making data computing, theory, and 

experiment all integral to an approach to materials that was really 

an economic development initiative because it was aimed at industrial competitiveness and making new materials at a much cheaper 

cost in half the time. And it was all largely seen as data being the 

integrator. And so creating services that make data that are collected from scientific activities, making them available to other researchers helps to ensure the reproducibility of the science, it helps 

others to take advantage of it more quickly, and it makes it directly 

available to industry so that they can take it up more quickly and 

then begin to make things. And that was what the Materials Genome was about. 
71 

So there are many, many issues, and I’d say the data issues are 

growing rapidly, just as are the computing ones. We can’t forget 

about them. They go together. 

Mr. HULTGREN. For years, industry and governments alike have 

used FLOPS as the benchmark standard for our fastest computers. 

I think this is a certainly valuable measure, which should not be 

abandoned, but what other ways do we need to be looking at our 

computational abilities to make sure that we have the most capable 

machines? Dr. Seidel? 

Dr. SEIDEL. We have a lot of work to do, and every aspect, as we 

heard on the technologies themselves, on the expertise of the scientific communities to take advantage of these machines that are 

getting harder to process or to program. If you have a million processors—the Blue Waters computer has close to a million processors, 

think about how you would program such a machine to do a problem in astrophysics or in biology. So we have to invest a lot in the 

training of the next generation of researchers. That’s really, really 

critical. 

And in fact, I had the privilege to meet with about 60 students 

from the XSEDE project who were at a conference in St. Louis this 

summer, I queried them and they all said that they were not learning what they needed in their university curriculum; they were 

learning it in these workshops that we were holding. So there’s a 

lot that needs to be done in every aspect of this. 

Mr. HULTGREN. You also discussed the Strategic Computing Initiative, and I’ve been in touch with Dr. Blazey, you know, at NIU 

who was encouraging this kind of initiative when he was OSTP. 

Earlier this year and in the previous Congress the House passed 

my legislation, the American Supercomputing Leadership Act, 

which would create a dedicated exascale program and ensure a 

more open facility to research the research community. 

I agree with the three leadership agencies in the initiative, and 

I think it’s important to stress to my colleagues the national defense needs, mainly in workforce development, that are developed 

first outside of DOD with students and researchers at NSF and 

DOE. 

Quickly—and I’m just about out of time—but how should we improve our interagency working groups at NITRD to better serve our 

research capabilities and connect the core capabilities certain agencies have? And also if—maybe we can follow up in writing, too, if 

you have further comment on PCAST review. That may be helpful 

as well. 

Mr. SEIDEL. I would just make a quick answer to that. I think 

the recommendations actually were excellent. I think they need to 

be acted on, and I’m very confident that they will be. I’d like to see 

a broader set of activities, though, that also really deeply engages 

the science communities. The NITRD Program does focus naturally 

on the technologies and so—but the science communities and the 

engineering communities are the ones driving this so they need to 

be engaged. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I 

yield back. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. And I now recognize Mr. 

Palmer for five minutes. 
72 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Dr. Hager, in the past, NITRD Program has had problems with 

the way in which participating agencies categorized their NITRD 

budgets. Is that still a problem? 

Dr. HAGER. So thank you for the question. 

Certainly, in the past there have been issues related to the question of what goes into the program component areas, the PCAs, 

which are the budget categories by which one measures the investments in the NITRD Program. I think that part of those issues had 

to do with the fact that the PCAs historically were quite outdated, 

as I have already noted. They’re over 20 years old. They in many 

cases no longer naturally fit the activities within the computing research field. And that’s in fact why we spent a great deal of effort 

in our working group attempting to understand first how one 

would go about changing the PCAs and also suggested a process by 

which they could be continually renewed so that there is a natural 

mapping between the PCAs and areas of interest within computing 

research. 

To give one simple example, we have the National Robotics Initiative but we don’t have a natural way to measure investment in 

robotics. So where would robotics go in the existing PCAs? 

Mr. PALMER. Do you—does NITRD, which is a—is the main 

source of federally funded information technology. Is there anything being done to ensure that there’s no duplicate research that’s 

being done in the agencies? Would you like to respond to that, Dr. 

Marzullo? 

Dr. MARZULLO. Thank you for the question. The way NITRD 

works is we have several groups where we have representatives 

from the agencies discuss their portfolios and review what is being 

funded. The details of this are published every year in our supplement, and much of the work in there is not only to avoid duplication but to find ways we can work with each other, which is I think 

even more important. I’d like to say the secret sauce of NITRD is 

collaboration. 

Mr. PALMER. That’s right. Thanks. 

Dr. Hager, your testimony mentions the tension between purchasing the long-term foundational research and short-term problem-solving research. How is NITRD approaching that problem? 

Dr. HAGER. So thank you for the question. 

I think it’s important to understand that NITRD represents an 

extremely broad collection of agencies, including NSF, which of 

course is the center of foundational research and computing and 

extending through mission agencies, including DARPA, NIST, Department of Education, and so forth. 

So NITRD in many ways is really, I believe a convening ground 

where there is the opportunity to have exactly the discussions of 

the balance between basic research and more applied mission-focused research. And my understanding, through discussions with 

NITRD, is that there are a variety of conversations that take place 

among those agencies to achieve that balance. 

I will say the remarks were also directed to the fact that as we 

were saying, computing research funding is sometimes challenging 

to come by, so one is, as a young faculty member, very tempted to 

focus on concrete and short-term problems simply because one can 
73 

get funding from the broadest set of agencies in that case. And that 

is the sort of thing that will advance your career, to show those immediate results. 

Mr. PALMER. And this question can apply to all of you, but in 

terms of the short-term problem-solving research, is that something 

that the private sector could play a greater role in and leave the 

longer-term stuff to the federal government? 

Dr. HAGER. So one of the interesting evolutions in computing research that I alluded to earlier is that relatively few companies 

now have industrial research groups within them. So Microsoft is 

a perfect example of a company that still does have a research 

group, and it’s possible to use that group as a buffer between shortterm and long-term research. 

I think at this point, because of where the industry is, it really 

is becoming more incumbent on academia, we’re finding, to really 

have that ecosystem of both short-term and long-term research. I 

think we would welcome the opportunity to better support some of 

the shorter-term research through other mechanisms if they were 

available, but at this point we don’t see those mechanisms. And so 

you’re seeing the community really fill that gap that has been created by the lack of industrial research groups. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, this is fascinating and necessary work, and I 

want to thank you for being here today. And one of the more polite 

groups of witnesses we’ve had. Thank you. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. I now recognize Mr. Abraham for five 

minutes. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the doctors for being here, too. 

Dr. Marzullo, is there any way the National Coordination Office 

itself can be improved, enhanced to support NITRD? 

Dr. MARZULLO. First, I’m going to give a shout-out to the National Coordination Office crew. Some of them are sitting behind 

me and they’re a fantastic group of people, I must say. 

I think the improvements we’ve been looking at are better ways 

to manage the NITRD Program, so how we can have better group 

structure, how we can get information more quickly. 

So—and I actually support all of the recommendations that 

PCAST made. I think that was a wonderful set of groups, and we 

are acting on them. 

But the National Coordination Office itself, they’re a great group 

of people. I couldn’t want a better staff. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. All right. Dr. Hager, how often is the NITRD Program reviewed, and how often would you want it—to review it? 

Dr. HAGER. Well, thank you for the question. 

So the current practice is to review every two years, and as you 

see, we did 2010, 2013, 2015, so we’re almost managing every two 

years. I would say two years, I believe, is too often. It’s very difficult to really perform a meaningful review just two years after 

the previous review happened. There’s really not a lot of time to 

react. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. What would you say would be the ideal number? 

Dr. HAGER. So I would say in the three- to five-year time frame 

would be——— 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Okay. 
74 

Dr. HAGER. —a more meaningful time to do a NITRD review. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Now, in your report you made several recommendations to NITRD. The stakeholders themselves, how are 

they receiving those? Are they a positive response, pushback? 

What’s their take on the recs you made? 

Dr. HAGER. So I have to say that, personally, I have only heard 

positive responses from the individuals with whom I’ve interacted. 

And I’d like to compliment Dr. Marzullo. I know that he has already within his office been reacting to many of the recommendations and, you know, he may have additional comments in terms 

of how those changes have been filtering through the NITRD Program. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Okay. And this is for any or all of you. I know the 

DOE is not part of the NITRD right now. Would that be a good 

thing, the Department of Education? 

Dr. MARZULLO. Department of Education is a participating agency, so we have had representatives come to talk about STEM, and 

we always welcome them more. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. But they’re not a—just a steadfast member? They 

do bring people in, though? 

Dr. MARZULLO. They do bring people in. They do work with us, 

yes. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. And you think that’s good enough? I mean you’re 

getting enough input from that aspect to do some good things with 

them? 

Dr. MARZULLO. I would always welcome more contact from——— 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Education. 

Dr. MARZULLO. I’m sorry, education. They’re a strong agency. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Okay. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield 

back. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. Actually, I will take the 

prerogative of one more question picking up on talking about the 

workshops that were often more helpful for the students than the 

classrooms. I was wondering if all of you might address a little bit 

about how we need to change education for dealing with the rapid 

changes that are going on in this whole industry. I think of a friend 

of mine, his son who’s a brilliant student, went to Stanford, and 

then came to him after the first semester and said, you know, Dad, 

I’m dropping out of school. You know, as the Dad, you’re kind of 

like oh, no, and he said, no, it’s good. Like I’m going to work because if I don’t go out and work in this field, I’m going to get behind by being in the classroom. So he was taking his classes while 

he’s working and doing this because he was worried kind of about 

what you said. 

So how can we change that education framework and dynamic 

and really have a—I mean he’s making money now while he’s taking his classes, too. And I’ve seen in my district we have a cybersecurity high school program. So how can we push this down to high 

school, too, where these kids are getting trained to go into the cybersecurity field out of high school and they are being recruited out 

of high school into really good-paying jobs, and then having those 

employers pay for them to get college credits as they move forward? 

So they basically have a free college degree waiting for them when 
75 

they get out of this program. So how we can really modernize our 

education system to deal with this quickly adapting industry? 

Dr. SEIDEL. I’ll make a couple quick comments on that and then 

let the others comment. When I was meeting with those students, 

I was really astounded to hear that they’re basically still being 

trained in 17th century methods in physics, which is learning calculus, but not in 21st century, even 20th century methods in the 

classroom. So this is largely due to the fact that professors are 

teaching the time-honored tradition and so on. And so they need 

a little bit of a kick, I think, often. And so I think agencies can help 

them move forward faster by incentivizing changes and providing 

programs to tell them what they expect from their research activities and so on. So that’s one way this can be done. 

My son also was recruited out of college and decided to stay in. 

It was largely because I think he thought the longer-term prospects 

for him would be good there, but he did really think about the 

same exact thing. 

Dr. HAGER. So let me just first just say on a personal level I understand completely how challenging it can be to advance teaching 

in the classroom. In my area, computer vision, there—I often come 

into a lecture and say ten years ago we didn’t even know how to 

begin to solve this problem. We now consider it a solved problem. 

We’re actually building on top of it. So the field really does evolve 

quite rapidly. 

One of the challenges I’d really like to highlight that the stress 

that the education—computing education is under these days. In 

my department, the number of majors has between tripled and 

quadrupled over the last few years, which creates enormous challenges in the classroom. I think the notion of looking for opportunities to bring experiential learning into the classroom. And I would 

actually highlight I think this is a place where industry could play 

a strong role. If we had representatives from industry coming into 

the classroom and teaching, it would both address the capacity 

needs within our department, as well as providing, I think, a very 

sorely needed perspective on where the computing industry is 

today. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. That’s a great idea, yes. 

Dr. MARZULLO. Part of the problem you’ve already mentioned is 

the rapidly changing field of information technology and trying to 

even get the teachers up to speed on what’s going on, get the material into their hands. Sometimes we seem to think that MOOCs are 

going to solve everything, and they will to a small degree, but 

training the teachers, getting information, developing material is a 

priority. 

I also think there are some very good programs out there for cybersecurity, the Scholarship for Service program, the Cyber Challenge Program of DHS. More will be done in that. I personally am 

interested to see when such programs will start springing up in the 

area of data analytics. That is clearly the next wave, and there’s 

going to be a huge demand for this, and I think we’re unprepared 

for that wave. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Well, thank you. I really appreciate all 

of our—actually, Mr. Lipinski, did you want—okay. 
76 

Well, thank you for your expertise and for your enthusiasm for 

your work. And I’d like to thank all of your colleagues that came 

with you today. This is an exciting area that we certainly always 

have to get caught up on. If it’s hard for these brilliant students 

to keep up on it, you can imagine how challenging it is for all of 

us. 

So we appreciate your thoughts and ideas, and any time you can 

give us more information on how we might better assist in what 

you’re doing, it would be most appreciated. So thank you for the 

opportunity to visit with you today. 

And the Committee is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:21 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 
(77) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
78 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Keith Marzullo 
79 

A historical example of research in Bohr's quadrant led to the eventual development of 

satellite navigation.' Using a 20 MHz receiver, George Guier of Johns Hopkins University 

Applied Physics laboratory (JHU APL) monitored the 1 kHz signal from the then recently 

launched Sputnik I. With a lot of hard work, he and his colleagues showed that one could 

determine a satellite's orbital data and the current location of the satellite based on the 

Doppler data of this 1kHz signal. This was verified with Sputnik II. Five months later, they 

turned the problem around: determining the location of the receiver based on the Doppler 

and orbital data of a satellite. Solving this new problem (which lies solidly in Pasteur's 

quadrant) led to the first navigation satellite system used for Polaris submarines that, in turn, 

led to the current Global Positioning System (GPS). A study done for the National Space-Based 

Positioning, Navigation and Timing Advisory Board in June 2015 estimated the benefits of GPS 

on the U.S. economy in 2013 to be about $56 billion (0.3% of the GDP).4 

A more current example of research in Bohr's quadrant is a strong definition of secure program 

obfuscation: find a way to release a computer program that can run but does not allow anyone 

to determine how it works because it is "obfuscated." Work in 2010 on this problem focused 

on being able to define exactly what this means, and then showing that being able to do such 

secure obfuscation was impossible. Recent research in this area has focused on other 

definitions of secure obfuscation that were useful and implementable. A breakthrough in 2013 

led to a definition that might be useful, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded 

a project, firmly in Pasteur's quadrant, exploring what can be done with these new insights 

with the goal of applying them to cloud computing. Doing so would widely deploy any positive 

results: the global market for cloud-computing services is predicted to reach $176 billion in 

2015, and that it is growing fast even when most other parts of the industry are stagnant or 

even declining. 5 

A large portion of the NITRO portfolio lies in Pasteur's quadrant. The path to actual innovation 

for such projects can be very long. An example is the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) by 

DARPA in 1997 titled "Active and High Confidence Networks." This BAA called for proposals 

that addressed the new idea of "Active Networks," which were "a new generation of networks 

based on software-intensive network architecture." This was to be done by placing 

computation within packets traveling through the network. The goal was to "provide a basis to 

support the increasingly sophisticated services demanded by defense applications." Research 

projects were funded that led to new ideas and intriguing prototypes, but Active Networks did 

not result in technology that was widely deployed. It was hard to come up with a clear use case 

that was a sufficiently compelling solution to a pressing need.6 Most of the efforts in Active 

Networks took place from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s. 

3 Guier, William H. and George C. Weiffenbach. Genesis of Satellite Navigation. Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest 

19(1):14-17, 1998. 4 "The Economic Benefits of GPS," September 1, 2015. http:ljgpsworld.com/the-economic-benefits-of-gps. 5 "The cheap, convenient cloud, • The Economist, Apri118, 2015. 

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21648685-cloud-computing-prices-keep-falling-whole-it-business-willchange-cheap-convenient. 

6 Feamster, Nick, Jennifer Rexford, and Ellen Zegura. "The Road to SON: An Intellectual History of Programmable 

Networks." ACM Queue 11(12), December 30, 2013. 

2 
80 

Subsequent efforts took these negative results into account, and focused on technologies that 

separated two fundamental components of network routing: the data plane (that is concerned 

with forwarding inbound data) and the control plane (that is concerned with the network 

topology). By separating these two components, researchers were able to focus on the benefits 

of, and the problems associated with, software control of the data plane. Doing so allowed 

some of the problems implied by the DARPA Active Networks BAA to be addressed, including 

those arising from the rapidly increasing size and scope of the Internet. This line of research, 

which started in the early 2000s, resulted in what is today called Software-Defined Networking 

(SON). Now, many commercial switch manufacturers support an SON interface, and many 

different controller platforms have emerged. These have been used to provide applications · 

such as dynamic access control, server load balancing, user mobility, and network 

virtualization. Network virtualization, by itself, is a major step forward in a long-standing 

problem, and its impact is still being understood. Google was an early adopter of SON for 

managing its wide-area traffic, and the SON industry is growing rapidly even as foundational 

research in SON continues. A 2013 report from SDXCentral observed that the SON industry 

went from nonexistent in 2009 to 225 companies in 2013, and forecasted the SON market 

growing from $1.5B in 2013 to $35.6B in 2018.7 

Active Networks did not result in immediate actual innovation, but it did, over time and in 

unexpected ways, define an area that is already proving to be an important game changer. It 

also foreshadowed a recent approach in networking called "network function virtualization," 

which is also proving to be another game changer. 

Hence, any measure that asks for research proposals considered under NITRO to be connected 

to actual innovation and economic growth should be approached with extreme caution: we do 

not know of any reliable methodology for predicting the eventual actual innovation and 

economic growth resulting from research in Bohr's or Pasteur's quadrants. We could lose 

innovations like GPS, SON, and potentially the fruits of the research on secure program 

obfuscation. 

2. What lessons learned and advice do you bring from your background of co-chairing 

two NITRD Senior Steering Groups while at the National Science Foundation? 

Through my experiences co-chairing two NITRO Senior Steering Groups (SSGs), I learned what I 

now call the "secret sauce" of the NITRO Program: coordination and collaboration. Working at 

an interagency level is a great way to get things done. For example, 1 joined the Cybersecurity 

and Information Assurance Research and Development (CSIA R&D) SSG shortly after the 

cybersecurity strategic plan8 was completed. At NSF, we used this plan as the basis of a rewrite 

of our principal cybersecurity program that brought in other parts of NSF- Engineering, 

Mathematics, Cyberinfrastructure, and the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences- with 

good effect. Over the next few years, the CSIA R&D SSG did outreach by doing conference 

7 lnfographic: SON Market Size to reach $358 by 2018. https:/ /www.sdxcentral.com/reports/sdn-market-sizeinfographic-2013/. 

8 Trustworthy Cyberspace: Strategic Plan for the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Program, 

December 2011, NSTC: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/fed cybersecuritv rd strategic plan 20ll.pdf. 

3 
81 

panels, which were made up of agency representatives, to promulgate the ideas and rationale 

of the strategic plan to academic and industry researchers and developers. And, the CSIA R&D 

SSG was, and continues to be, a way to ensure broad agency participation in workshops and 

meetings that individual agencies hold in cybersecurity to address their mission goals. In sum, 

the member agencies worked together to develop a strategic plan, ensured their programs 

aligned with this plan, and then worked to keep each other informed so as to ensure gaps were 

covered, duplication reduced, and results of activities shared. 

The Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) SSG showed me other benefits of working in the interagency 

realm. For example, NSF initiated its CPS program in 2008.9 The goals of the CPS program, 

which supported a broad, foundational research agenda, partially overlapped with the goals of 

programs in other agencies that aligned with the goals of their respective agency missions. One 

of NSF's strengths is the visibility of its programs to academic institutions, and so once the CPS 

SSG was formed, we discussed rewriting the NSF CPS solicitation to include funding 

opportunities for CPS research projects by other agencies. This has been a success. The 

solicitation is currently joined by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of 

Transportation (DOT), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and National 

Institutes of Health (NIH). 

Discussions in the CPS SSG also uncovered an opportunity for a partnership between NIST and 

NSF. As NIST was moving forward with its successful Global City Teams Challenge initiative, NSF 

observed that providing some additional funding to NSF CPS principal investigators who were 

involved in the team efforts helped the missions of both NIST and NSF. 

The NITRO National Coordination Office (NCO) was instrumental in enabling all these 

coordination and collaboration efforts. It is hard for me to imagine how such results could be 

achieved without the NITRO Program. 

3. What is NITRD's role in assuring that the number of agencies represented can 

take advantage of the potential capabilities an exascale system can offer, 

particularly in the realm of big data? 

The NITRO Program provides a platform for collaboration, coordination, and information 

sharing within its working groups. Members of the High End Computing Interagency Working 

Group (HEC IWG) are kept informed of emerging exascale architecture and technology trends. 

A number of HEC IWG members also support the Department of Energy's (DOE) co-design for 

the exascale effort, as evidenced by the joint Request for Information (RFI) by DOE, NIH, and 

NSF to identify scientific research topics and applications that need exascale HPC capabilities. 10 

A major topic being explored in both the HEC IWG and the Big Data Senior Steering Group is 

the need for improved alignment between big compute and big data. Big Data developed 

within an environment that required fast, inexpensive, resilient, real-time (usually distributed) 

computing on often unstructured data; as opposed to the supercomputing environment of 

9 In fact, this program coined the term "cyber physical system." 10 "Request for Information (RFI) on Science Drivers Requiring Capable Exascale High Performance Computing" 

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-GM-15-122.html. 

4 
82 

high-end, highly engineered, reliable equipment and customized programming that dealt with 

large computational problems where time from "input to decision" was not as important as the 

accuracy of models and simulations. Most agencies require both of these computing 

environments and see the convergence of them into a single system as essential to solving the 

Nation's challenges. NITRO provides the means by which experts from both "sides" of 

computing, exascale and big data, can collaborate to design the systems of the future that will 

have the accessibility, affordability, speed, and resilience of the big data systems, and the 

computational power and reliability of the exascale systems. 

NITRO agencies are also broadening the use and availability of High-Performance Computing 

{HPC) capabilities through programs such as NSF's XSEDE {eXtreme Science and Engineering 

Discovery Environment) and the Department of Defense High Performance Computing 

Modernization Program's {DoD/HPCMP) HPCPortal. These programs provide services to 

support the productive use of supercomputers, data collections, and HPC software tools. 

XSEDE also supports users who will be developing novel cloud architectures that will further aid 

in broadening the availability of HPC resources. 

4. Is NITRD's membership actively coordinating to support the DOE Office of 

Science's efforts to reach the exascale level in high performance computing? Are 

there any challenges to coordination on this topic? 

DOE is an active member of many of the NITRD groups, including the HEC IWG. Agency 

members of the HEC IWG are often invited by DOE to participate in its proposals and technical 

reviews. DOE and other agencies also bring forward research topics that would benefit from 

collaboration with other agencies, e.g., storage systems and 10 {SSIO). See also the response to 

Chairwoman Comstock's Question 3. 

5. Why do you believe that the NITRD program is important? Please discuss the 

significance of federal investments in networking and information technology 

research and development. 

The NITRO Program supports coordination among Federal agencies to assure that the 

networking and information technology research and development needs of user communities 

(Federal agencies, universities and academic researchers, the commercial sector, and the 

public) are addressed. To assure that the future IT needs of these user communities are met, 

Federal agencies support fundamental research in information technologies and in the new 

and improved technologies that enable this research. NITRO helps Federal agencies coordinate 

the development of programs for this research and the sharing of their results. The NITRD 

Program supports coordination among Federal agencies to: 

• Coordinate user communities {e.g., hold workshops) to identify needed research in 

leading-edge IT science disciplines to assure that future science and technology needs 

are addressed for Federal agency missions and for the university, research, 

commercial, and public communities; 

5 
83 

• Share information on research planning among Federal agencies so that research 

needs are addressed and Federal agencies benefit from each other's IT research 

programs without duplicating that research; 

Organize demonstrations and prototypes of emerging technologies to engage the 

commercial, public, and university communities; and 

• Assure that research results are shared quickly among Federal agencies and with the 

pubic, commercial, and university communities through coordination among the 

Federal agencies and through outreach to other communities. 

The NITRO Program supports the coordination of the research and development required for 

the advancement and expansion of IT capabilities that support continued U.S. leadership in 

science and technology. This provides the basis for ongoing commercial and business 

development and the advanced cyber services that are critical for improving IT capabilities, 

scientific research capabilities, and an ever-increasing "cyber-society," in which people and 

society benefit from the interconnections and enhanced capabilities that IT enables. 

6. Is there any way that the National Coordination Office itself could be improved to 

better support the NITRD program? 

The National Coordination Office provides exceptional support to the NITRO Program. We 

support the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology's (PCAST's) recent 

comments and recommendations on the NCO, 11 and plan to implement those 

recommendations that we believe will enhance the support that the NCO provides to the 

NITRO Program. 

7. Researchers at Harvard recently designed the first on-chip metamaterial with a 

refractive index of zero, meaning that the phase of light can travel infinitely fast. How 

does this affect quantum computing? 

The coordination of this research is shared jointly by the NITRO NCO and the National 

Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO), which coordinated together to provide this 

response. 

Nanotechnology has enabled the development of nanostructured metamaterials with exotic 

optical properties not found in nature. Quantum computing uses an entirely different approach 

than classical computing and also utilizes another aspect of quantum mechanics known as 

entanglement, which is the interaction of quantum states of a particle at a distance. Rather 

than store information as Os or ls as conventional computers do, a quantum computer uses 

qubits- which can be a 0 or a 1 or both at the same time. One of the big challenges to creating 

reliable quantum computers is making a system that does not break down the moment one 

tries to interact with it. The Harvard University invention has the potential to enable qubits to 

be entangled at longer distances and help quantum engineers experiment with different 

approaches to creating a truly powerful quantum computer. 

11 Report to the President and Congress Ensuring Leadership in Federally Funded Research and Development in 

Information Technology. August 2015, President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology: 

https://www. whitehouse.gov I sites/default/files/microsites/ ostp/PCAST /nitrd report aug 2015.pdf. 

6 
84 

Fiber optics is already used to carry information over long-haul data infrastructure. However, 

before the information can be used by a computer, it has to be converted to an electrical 

signal. The Harvard University invention can shrink or squeeze light so that it can be processed 

on the nanoscale of a silicon chip. Fabricating such a metamaterial on a chip allows integration 

with other nanofabrication techniques for on-chip light manipulation. This has the potential to 

enable optical computers that would be much faster and use far less energy than current 

computers by eliminating the need to make the conversion from optical to electrical and back 

to optical. 

a. How will this affect our everyday lives? 

IT research and applications, particularly in the NITRO areas of High End Computing (HEC), 

Large Scale Networking (LSN), and Cyber Security and Information Assurance (CSIA), will 

significantly benefit in the future from the increased capabilities provided by this 

technology. Faster, lower-power, high-performance computing will enable applications 

throughout our society including better weather forecasting, bioinformatics analyses 

supporting personalized medicine, data processing for the large Hadron Collider, and 

support of leading-edge science, e.g., real-time steering of large-scale instruments such as 

used for tokamaks, and analyses of astronomical data. 

b. How does the NITRD program support research like this? 

Federal agencies support fundamental research in information technologies and in the 

new and improved technologies that enable this research. NITRO coordinates Federal 

agencies in developing the programs for this research and in sharing the results. 

8. Are there key factors limiting progress in computing? If so, what are those factors, 

and how can the NITRD program help? 

There are several key factors limiting progress in computing. In response to this question, 1 

touch on four key factors that I believe are at the forefront. 

1. As noted in the National Research Council report The Future of Computing Performance: 

Game Over or Next Leve/?12: "Fast, inexpensive computers are now essential for nearly all 

human endeavors and have been a critical factor in increasing economic productivity, 

enabling new defense systems, and advancing the frontiers of science ... The essential engine 

that made that exponential growth possible is now in considerable danger." The report cites 

thermal-power challenges and increasingly larger energy demands by computers as the key 

technical challenge limiting progress in computing. 

Computing advances during the last 50 years have depended critically on the rapid growth 

of single-processor performance with ever-decreasing cost and with manageable increases 

in power consumption. That growth stemmed from increasing the number and speed of 

12 The Future of Computing Performance: Gome Over or Next Level? National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 

2011. 

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transistors on a processor chip, while also reducing transistor size. However, around 2003-

2005, the semiconductor industry confronted limits to further reduction of transistor size 

and to increasing transistor density on a chip. As a result, microprocessor clock frequencies 

have remained essentially the same in order to keep total power, area, and generated heat 

within economically acceptable and physically achievable bounds. Thus, the performance 

of a single processor has stalled. No commercially viable technologies exist today to 

replace current silicon-based semiconductors with materials that would overcome the 

heat-dissipation limits of silicon. 

There are several NITRO agencies that are working on different potential technologies, 

such as single electron transistors and quantum computing. NITRO will help coordinate the 

results of these efforts primarily through the HEC IWG. 

Programming remains a limiting factor. For example, the semiconductor industry 

responded to earlier hardware challenges by introducing processors with multiple cores 

(independent processing units, or IPUs). However, taking advantage of multiple IPUs 

requires programs to no longer be sequential, or even modestly parallel. Programmers are 

now faced with developing programs that can make use of many I PUs at once. That is a 

very difficult task: current software development and execution environments an~ not 

commensurately advanced to support this type of programming. The NSF's Exploiting 

Parallelism and Scalability (XPS) program is an example of an R&D program that focuses on 

these issues. 

2. Software lifecycle cost is increasingly becoming the dominant fraction of the total 

information technology investment. Additionally, software activities continue to be a major 

factor in large-scale project delays, failures, cost overruns, and productivity bottlenecks. 

There is a general consensus that current approaches produce software that is difficult to 

maintain, upgrade, and scale, especially in the face of rapidly changing machine architecture 

and new system requirements. DARPA's Building Resource Adaptive Software Systems 

(BRASS) Program is an example of an R&D program that focuses on software sustainability 

and maintainability. 

NITRO helps by coordinating such activities through the HEC IWG and the Software Design 

and Productivity (SOP) Coordinating Group. 

3. Progress in computing depends significantly on the level of expertise and skills in the 

workforce. Continuing emphasis on increasing student participation in computer science 

and STEM programs early on is required: far too few students take even a single computer 

science course during their K-12 education.13 Engaging students early in STEM fields and 

retaining them through higher education remain a challenge. 

Workforce efforts are coordinated in the NITRO Social, Economic, and Workforce 

Implications of IT and IT Workforce Development (SEW) Coordinating Group. 

13 

Marie desJardins, "The real reason U.S. students lag behind in computer science," Fortune Insider: Education, 

October 22, 2015. http:Ufor.tn/1W6eoRw. 

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4. As noted by the 2015 PCAST review of NITRO, the domains in which IT is used have become 

preeminent in IT R&D. IT is now central in physical infrastructure, social computing, 

manufacturing, health care, transportation, and many other areas. As a result, computing is 

increasingly becoming multidisciplinary and collaborative. "Team science" is the field that 

focuses on this area of collaborative computing. However, there remain a number of 

challenges associated with team science. Recently, NSF sponsored the National Academies 

of Science to produce a report on the science of team science, 14 with the goal of assisting 

universities and research institutions in supporting the team science approach. Through the 

SEW Coordinating Group, NITRO is currently supporting an interagency effort addressing 

issues of funding, reviewing, and rewarding collaborative research. 

9. Are there agencies or other interested parties who should be at the table in NITRD 

discussions, but are not? If so, why are they not there and how can this be changed? 

The NITRO Program welcomes participation by any agency whose research contributes to the 

overall goals of the NITRO Program and to the goals of one or more of the Program's Program 

Component Areas (PCAs). The PCAs are the major subject areas under which the projects and 

activities coordinated through the NITRO Program are grouped (for example, cybersecurity or 

large-scale networking). 

Some agencies participate in NITRO Program activities, but the participants do not have 

significant investments in IT R&D to warrant becoming members. Other agencies may not be 

able to meet all the requirements for membership in the NITRO Program in terms of both the 

time commitment required of agency volunteers to participate in Working Group activities and 

the cost of membership. However, we encourage all these agencies to participate and to 

continue to stay involved and informed. 

10. As was mentioned at our hearing, there are a few PCAST recommendations that 

relate to your office -can you please explain how you are implementing their 

recommendations? 

PCAST recommended that the NCO work with OSTP and the NITRO Working Groups to revise 

the PCAs and implement a review process to ensure that they reflect both the current nature 

of IT and major national priorities. The NCO is well on its way to implementing both of these 

recommendations. 

PCAST also recommended that the NITRO Working Groups be restructured and processes 

implemented to ensure that they remain current and relevant, and evolve in response to 

national priorities. In addition, PCAST recommended that the NCO publish and publicly discuss 

the activities of the Senior Steering Groups (SSGs). The NCO is working with OSTP and the 

NITRO Subcommittee to develop and implement a process to restructure the groups, and to 

report on SSG activities through the legislatively mandated annual reports to Congress on the 

NITRO Program that are submitted as supplements to the President's budget. 

14 Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science, National Research Council, National Academies Press, April 2015, 

http:Uwww .nap.edu/ catalog/19007/enhanci ng-the-effectiveness-of-team-science. 

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11. Where should Congress focus its federal IT R&D investments when it faces tough 

budget and deficit decisions and why? 

The President's annual budget request provides direct guidance to the Congress on where to 

focus federal IT R&D investments. The NITRO budget crosscut is currently about $4.1 billion. 

Choosing areas in which to focus investments is done by setting priority areas, both overall and 

within IT R&D. Thus, I see two questions: (i) What is the priority of federal IT R&D investments 

compared to other budget areas? (ii) What are the priorities in federal IT R&D investments? I 

address these two questions below: 

Determining which areas should be priorities is exceptionally hard, but IT R&D should be a 

high priority. In its annual Global Competitiveness Report, 15 the World Economic Forum 

classified the United States in the 21st century as an "innovation-driven economy." The 

2014-15 report notes that firms in countries with innovation-driven economies "must 

design and develop cutting-edge products and processes to maintain a competitive edge 

and move toward even higher value-added activities. This progression requires an 

environment that is conducive to innovative activity and supported by both the public and 

the private sectors." 

Many others have observed the role in our economy of innovation driven by IT R&D. The 

2012 Continuing Innovation in Information Technology by the National Research Council16 

contains the often-cited "tire tracks" diagram that shows eight sectors in which combined 

public and private IT R&D have led to over $1 billion/year revenues- seven of which have 

>$10 billion/year revenues. These sectors are broadband and mobile, microprocessors, 

personal computing, Internet and the web, cloud computing, enterprise systems, 

entertainment and design, and robotics and assistive technologies. The 2013 book The 

Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths17 by Professor Mariana 

Mazzucato of the University of Sussex lists ten components of the Apple iPad that benefited 

significantly from federal IT R&D investments: microprocessors, LCD displays, micro hard 

drives, lithium ion batteries, digital signal processing, cellular networks, the Internet, global 

positioning systems, multi-touch screens, and Siri. And, current IT R&D is leading to an 

astonishing future, as Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee of MIT argue in their 2014 book 

The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant 

Technologies.'" Referring to accomplishments such as driverless cars, industrial robots that 

can be trained by physically guiding one through a series of steps, and metal additive 

manufacturing ("3D printing"), they observe that digital technologies will be as important 

and transformational to society and the economy as the steam engine was in the Industrial 

Revolution. 

15 The Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016. World Economic Forum. 

http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-competitiveness-report-2015-2016. 

16 Continuing Innovation in Information Technology, Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. 2012: 

http:Usites.nationalacademies.org/CSTB/CompletedProjects/CSTB 045476. 17 The Entrepreneurial State- Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths, M. Mazzucato, Anthem Press, ISBN 978-0-

857282-52-1, 2013. 18 The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, E. Brynjolfsson and 

A. McAfee, W.W. Norton, 2014. 

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This breathtaking change is the result of both private and public IT R&D investments: 

investments from both sides are vital. The nonpartisan Center for American Progress policy 

institute argued in their December 2012 report The High Return on Investment for Publicly 

Funded Research, 19 that "[the] importance of innovation is not measured simply in new 

inventions. Innovation also requires dissemination through market adoption and public 

acceptance. While the private sector has a key role to play in making innovation happen, 

government must provide three key public-good inputs that allow innovation to blossom: 

investments in human capital, infrastructure, and research." Indeed, the World Economic 

Forum warns that, for innovation-driven economies, "[in]light of the recent sluggish 

recovery and rising fiscal pressures faced by advanced economies, it is important that public 

and private sectors resist pressures to cut back on the R&D spending that will be so critical 

for sustainable growth into the future." 

Our future is being defined by the results of our IT R&D investments, and thus remains one 

of our top priorities. 

ii. The 2015 PCAST Report to the President and Congress Ensuring Leadership in Federally 

Funded Research ond Development in Information Technology identified several IT R&D 

priorities: 

a. Cybersecurity, including foundational research that engages computer science, other 

engineering disciplines, and behavioral and social science both in protection - in 

particular for emerging application domains such as the Internet of Things- and on 

ways to anticipate and defend against attacks. They observed that research sponsors 

should work closely with all agencies, and with the private sector to facilitate transition 

from research and development to deployment and practice. 

b. Health IT, including foundational research, promoting the leveraging of electronic 

health data in data analyses, and mechanisms encouraging accelerated deployment, 

testing, and evolution of translational health IT systems for clinical use. 

c. Big data and data intensive computing with a broad R&D agenda that reflects the 

rapidly growing impact of this area on both the public and private sectors. 

d. IT and the physical world, advancing R&D of new approaches for robust autonomy, 

security and reliability, integrative approaches to human integration, new sensing and 

interface technologies, and cognitive and social aspects of interactive physical systems. 

e. The science, engineering, policy, and social understanding of privacy protection. 

f. The systems and science of the interplay of people and computing, such as social 

computing, human-robot interaction, privacy and security, and health-related aspects 

of human-computer systems. 

g. High-capability computing for discovery, security, and commerce, broadly scoped to 

include not only modeling and simulation, but also data-intensive and communicationintensive application domains. 

h. Foundational "blue-sky" IT research incorporating both broad and novel approaches 

that will sustain computing far into the future. 

19 The High Return on Investment for Publicly Funded Research. Center for American Progress. 

https:flwww.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/report/2012/12/10/47481/the-high-return-on-investment· 

for-publicly-funded-research/. 

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Most would agree with this list. I find it compelling because it contains the two areas -highperformance computing and big data-that continue to change the way the rest of science 

and engineering is done; it contains the major challenge problems that involve IT and 

people; and it contains the two main threats to such systems: compromising cybersecurity 

and privacy. Prioritizing this set will support the near- and mid-future (such as aging in 

place, social computing, 20 smart cities, robust and secure critical infrastructure, Internet of 

Things, etc.) and the more distant future (with foundational "blue sky" research). 

a. Can you recommend where savings can be achieved within the NITRD 

portfolio? 

Savings can be achieved through coordination and collaboration. By working together, 

agencies can identify gaps in their research portfolios and ensure that results support 

each other's missions and goals. One occasion when this can happen is the annual 

planning meeting conducted by each NITRO working group. In an annual planning 

meeting, the member agencies review each agency's programs in that group's area, 

including results from the previous year and goals for the next year. On occasion, the 

agencies find opportunities to craft joint solicitations, such as the cross-agency 

solicitations in Cyber-Physical Systems (led by NSF and joined by DHS, DOT, NASA, and 

NIH). NITRO continues to look for ways to strengthen these coordination efforts to 

increase the efficiency of the member agencies' programs and portfolios. 

12. The workforce needs of the IT field continue to grow and will need workers to fill 

those needs. Unfortunately, participation in computer science-related courses does 

not seem to be growing to meet the needs of employers. What are academic 

institutions and industry doing, and what more can they do to encourage student 

involvement and engagement in computing fields? 

Interest in computer science declined precipitously at universities after the "dot-com" collapse 

in 2000, but student enrollment figures have more than recovered. The Taublee Survey" 

reported that in 2014, the number of new undergraduate computing majors rose for the 

seventh straight year, with an increase of 18-20% compared to the previous year. They also 

reported double digit increases in bachelor's degree production. This is good news for 

employers, but there is still a growing gap between the number of students graduating and the 

number of available positionsY And, the K-12 pipeline is not as healthy: among the principals 

who report that their school offers computer science courses, 47% of them say that computer 

programming and coding are not part of the coursework. 23 There is a welcome response to this 

problem from technology leaders, nonprofits, and companies to expose more public school 

children to computer science. For example, Code.org, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding 

participation in computer science, particularly among women and underrepresented students, 

has launched the "Hour of Code" global movement that has reached tens of millions of 

20 Social computing focuses on the intersection of social behavior and computational systems, especially the 

collaborative and interactive aspects of online behavior. 21 2014 Taulbee Survey. Computing Research News 27(5), May 2015. 22 "What's wrong with this picture?" Code.org, https:/fcode.org/stats. 

''Landscape of K-12 Computer Science Education in the U.S. Gallup. http://csedu.gallup.com/home.aspx. 

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students in over 180 countries. Each student participates in a one-hour introduction to 

computer science that is designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the 

basics. In addition to Code.org's efforts, it is worth noting that NSF funds academic researchers 

to prototype courses (such as the "Exploring Computer Science" and "Advanced Placement 

Computer Science Principles" courses) and teacher professional development. Local 

governments and districts are also responding: Cities like New York and San Francisco have 

committed to offer computer science to students in all grade levels, and Chicago has said that 

computer science will eventually become a high-school requirement. 24 Moreover, several 

states are either examining or already allowing computer science to count towards high school 

math requirements. This has the potential of increasing interest in computer science in high 

school with the possibility of that interest leading to involvement in college. 25 

a. Do you believe that the development and application of IT related systems, 

services, tools, and methodologies have boosted U.S. labor productivity more 

than anything else in recent decades? If so, why do you believe this to be the 

case? 

Will the IT industry continue to increase the productivity of the U.S. 

workforce? 

IT-related systems, services, tools, and methodologies have not only boosted U.S. labor 

productivity, but have also increased efficiency in recent decades. With smartphone 

and tablets coupled with fast wireless network access, communication has become 

more efficient and secure. Not only has this increased productivity and efficiency, it has 

also reduced environmental waste, such as overconsumption of power, paper waste, 

etc. It has also empowered users to collaborate using online virtual meeting tools to be 

productive regardless of team location. The IT industry continues to promise an 

increase in productivity by encouraging innovative apps and online connected devices 

(i.e., the Internet of Things, or loT) that enable newer ways to do efficient business. 

13. In previous NITRD hearings, we have heard that NIT's role in national security, 

national competitiveness, and national priorities is far broader than highperformance computing alone. Can you expand on how the NIT field has influenced 

or continues to influence national security and competitiveness? 

As noted in the 2015 PCAST review of NITRO, "Information technology (IT) drives the modern 

world. Nearly 80 percent of the households in the developed world have access to the Internet, 

and nearly half of the world is connected. IT empowers scientific inquiry, space and Earth 

exploration, teaching and learning, consumer buying and selling, informed decision-making, 

national security, transportation, advanced manufacturing, and protection ofthe environment. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that more than half of all new science, technology, 

24 

Phuong Le, "Growing push to expose more students to computer science," AP, December 2, 2015 3:15AM EST. 25 For example, see Ohio's graduation requirement for math that allows computer science to count: 

http://education.ohio.govfTopics/Ohios-learning-Standards/Mathematics/Math-Graduation-Requirements. Also, 

see the November 24, 2014, US News and World Report article, "Making it Count: Computer Science Spreads as 

Graduation Requirement," http:Uwww.usnews.com/news/stem-solutions/articles/2014/11/25/making-it-countcomputer-science-spreads-as-graduation-requirement. 

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engineering, and mathematics (STEM) jobs will be related to information technology. It is 

difficult today to imagine a major economic sector, governmental function, or societal activity 

that does not directly or indirectly benefit from advances in information technology." 

Similarly, it would be difficult to overstate the importance of IT for national security. Regarding 

national defense, the United States has a high-technology military; virtually every aspect 

depends on IT and computational capability. The modern U.S. military is based largely on the 

availability of technological advantages because it must be capable of defeating a varied range 

of adversaries in multiple simultaneous areas throughout the world. IT -such as 

communications technologies, satellites, state-of-the-art weapons platforms, drones-gives 

the U.S. military a high confidence in its ability to prevail in any conventional fight. 

IT also enhances domestic security. Examples include port cargo screening, security 

surveillance and video analytics, digital fingerprint analytics, and data analysis for intelligence. 

As noted in the 2009 White House Cyberspace Policy Review/6 the globally interconnected 

digital information and communications infrastructure known as "cyberspace" underpins 

almost every facet of modern society and provides critical support for the U.S. economy, civil 

infrastructure, public safety, and national security. Yet, cybersecurity risks pose some of the 

most serious economic and national security challenges of the 21st century. The United States 

faces the dual challenge of maintaining an environment that promotes efficiency, innovation, 

economic prosperity, and free trade while also promoting safety, security, civil liberties, and 

privacy rights. 

The next-generation IT infrastructure and capabilities under development will enable 

continued U.S. economic competitiveness through leadership in economic innovation and 

scientific discovery (e.g., alternative energy sources, technologies, and supply systems; 

personalized bio-genetic medicine; space exploration) and education and quality of life (e.g., 

universal learning technologies and access to information; virtual environments for 

collaborative work and social interaction; intelligent systems for independent living; life-saving 

transportation systems; transparent government). 

IT will continue to enable integration of computing with people and the physical world and will 

be central to achievements in security, privacy, health, transportation, manufacturing, robotics, 

social computing, and smart infrastructure, addressing many of the most important national 

priorities. 

14. Do you believe that industry should be more engaged in the NITRD program? If 

so, in what way and why? 

Industry engagement in the NITRO Program continues to be very important. The NITRO 

Program uses a variety of mechanisms to reach out to researchers, private-sector developers, 

resource providers, and end users. Examples include two groups under the LSN CG, the Joint 

Engineering Team (JET) and Middleware and Grid Interagency Coordination (MAGIC) group, 

26 Cyberspace Policy Review: Assuring a Trusted and Resilient Information and Communications Infrastructure, May 

2009, https://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/Cyberspace Policy Review final.pdf. 

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which have academic and industry participation; the Faster Administration of Science and 

Technology Education and Research (FASTER) Community of Practice (CoP), which seeks 

exchanges of information with the private sector and new technologies to streamline the 

management of Federal research; and the multisector NITRO research workshops held in all the 

PCAs. 

The relationship between industry and Federal agencies in the NITRO Program, such as NSF, 

NIST, DHS, DARPA, and DOE, is essential to the development and demonstration of new 

technologies and applications. Industry can provide insight into real-world problems and access 

to infrastructure. Industry has contributed equipment and applications to develop both 

leading-edge demonstrations and prototypes of new technologies and applications by Federal 

agencies, thereby accelerating development and technology transfer. One example of 

coordination and engagement of industry includes the NIST Global City Teams Challenge and 

NIST Public Working Groups on topics such as Cyber Physical Systems, Big Data, and others. 

Research in IT is increasingly interdisciplinary, requiring collaboration with industry researchers 

to make advancements. Industry participation in workshops is an important way for 

researchers, users, and industry to work together to identify needs forfuture IT technologies 

and bring into focus the research topics that warrant Federal agencies' investments. It is 

important to include more than just the large NIT companies: participation from smaller 

companies and companies that leverage or depend upon NIT R&D is important as well. 

Industry can also work with the Federal Government to address national priorities in areas such 

as defense, the economy, health and human safety, education, and quality of life. It is worth 

noting that in some technical areas, such as cybersecurity and networking, neither the 

government nor industry can do it alone. Industry and government are mutually dependent on 

developing and implementing solutions that are compatible across sectors. 

a. Does your office have any plans to expand outreach to industry? 

The NCO is working with the NITRO Working Groups to identify and pursue opportunities 

to become more engaged with industry. 

15. What are the benefits of having industry engaged in the NITRD program? 

Industry is engaged in the NITRO program in several ways, each with significant benefits to IT 

research and development and to the commercial, public, and research sectors. This 

involvement accelerates the development and commercialization of new IT technology. 

Industry is involved in workshops held by the NITRO community to engage user communities in 

identifying research needs in IT technologies and applications. This assures that industry needs 

and concerns are addressed in developing plans and programs for IT research at the Federal 

agencies. 

In some instances, industry is involved in the IT research supported by the Federal agencies. 

This provides industry with direct experience in development of new IT capabilities and with a 

knowledge base useful for the development of new commercial capabilities. 

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Industry is involved in Federal agency and community demonstrations and prototypes of 

emerging IT technologies. Industry is asked to donate equipment and services in the 

development of demonstration and prototype programs. Industry involvement provides an 

early and immediate knowledge of the new capabilities and technologies that are being 

developed. Industry involvement in community demonstrations of new IT technologies 

provides industry with a working relationship with the communities and users who will need 

the IT technologies and capabilities in the future. 

Some Federal agencies, including DoD, DARPA, DHS, DOE, and NSF, provide funding to industry 

to support initial development, demonstration, and commercialization of new IT technology 

and applications. This provides industry with the resources to develop a technology to the 

commercial stage and with the knowledge base to support continuing commercialization of the 

new technologies. 

16. In your testimony, as an example of benefits to basic internet technology research, 

you note the evolution of DARPA's ARPANET to NSF's NSFNET and then to the 

commercia/Internet that we all are familiar with today. Can you speak to 

additional significant examples that demonstrate the result of federally funded 

research and development through the help of the NITRD program? 

There are a number of examples of the NITRD Program facilitating federally funded research in 

basic Internet technologies that have been beneficial to advancing science and creating 

economic opportunities. These are highlighted further below, but first I would like to set this 

response in a broader context. 

Some successes are clear only in retrospect since it can take decades to see results and trace 

the results back to basic research. To illustrate, see the updated "tire tracks" graphic from the 

Computer Science and Telecommunications Board's 2012 report Continuing Innovation in 

Information Technology21 that shows, for example, the relationship of 40 years of fundamental 

research in networking technology to today's $10 billion Internet and Web sector market that 

includes firms like Google, Cisco, Amazon, Juniper, Facebook, eBay, Akamai, and Yahoo!. 

Additionally, one needs to recognize that the U.S. research enterprise is complex, and there is 

no single formula that guarantees the right way to steer investments in basic research to 

successful outcomes. The National Academies report Furthering America's Research Enterprise 

summarizes this well:28 

To understand how federal investments in scientific research result in 

societal benefits, it is necessary to understand the American research 

enterprise as a system that must be viewed in relation to the innovation 

system in which the discoveries produced by research are used to 

27 

Continuing Innovation in Information Technology, Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. 2012: 

http:ljsites.nationalacademies.org/CSTB/CompletedProjects/CSTB 045476. 28 

Furthering America's Research Enterprise, National Academies of Science. 2014: 

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/18804/furthering-americas-research-enterprise. 

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develop new technologies and other innovations. Without this systemlevel understanding, policies focused on relatively narrow objectivessuch as increasing university patenting and licensing of research 

discoveries or reducing the funding for certain disciplines or types of 

research-could have undesired consequences. 

Such an understanding, however, is not easily achieved. Discoveries 

often emerge from the highly complex and dynamic research enterprise 

as a result of the system as a whole. They are not due to any individual 

component of the system and thus cannot be predicted from the nature 

of the components. Nor can one predict how the knowledge from a 

research discovery might eventually be taken up and used, by whom, 

and in what ways that will lead to a transformative innovation. Indeed, 

research discoveries and the innovations to which they lead often arise 

serendipitously. The complexity of the research and innovation systems 

is why attempts to trace major innovations back to their original 

supporting research have rarely if ever revealed a direct flow of money 

in, value out. (p. 120) 

.... The committee concludes that societal benefits from federal research 

can be enhanced by focusing attention on the three crucial pillars of the 

research system: a talented and interconnected workforce, adequate 

and dependable resources, and world-class basic research in all major 

areas of science. {p. 121) 

To exemplify how the NITRO Program contributes to this process, I will use advanced 

networking as an example. NSF and DARPA are two NITRO agencies that fund basic research. 

They typically bring the user community together to solicit requirements for some area of 

research, and based on these inputs, will fund university research on the desired capabilities. 

Because the research is federally funded, information is in the public sector and shared. As 

research progresses and new capabilities are created, users learn about the capabilities and 

begin to apply them in their local environments by building prototypes {often at university 

campuses). When the prototypes are ready, they conduct demonstrations that the larger user 

community can observe. Once a capability is successfully demonstrated, the larger user 

community will start adopting it in their networking technologies and making further 

refinements. In some cases, the university researchers, or others knowledgeable about the 

research, will seek to commercialize the technology and start companies to do so. If it is a 

promising technology, other commercial interests may seek to improve it or introduce 

innovations that produce a next-generation version of the technology. 

This process occurred in networking, starting with the federally funded research on network 

links conducted at universities. In the early days, people had to switch out links manually. Then 

Cisco routinized most of that labor-intensive effort by putting capabilities for network links on 

chips. This was an important innovation, but when updates were needed, users still needed to 

update the software manually. Then, Juniper Networks introduced Field-Programmable Gate 

Arrays (FPGAs), which allowed the updates to be done programmatically. Both Cisco and 

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Juniper Networks became successful technology companies. They are joined today by many 

others, including, e.g., Akamai, which provides a highly distributed cloud optimization platform 

for web traffic control technologies. Akamai's technologies are based on research funded at 

MIT by NSF and the DOD, through DARPA and the Army Research Office. And, now, a new 

generation of networking technologies has emerged through investments by the U.S. 

Government (notably NSF): Software-Defined Networks (SON) and Named Data Networking 

(NDN). 

Through the NITRD Program, federal agencies share information with each other about their 

research programs. Sometimes they will collaborate on workshops, principal investigator (PI) 

meetings, or sponsor conference sessions to advance knowledge more broadly about the 

research. The Software-Defined Networks (SON) workshops in 2013 and 2015, coordinated 

through the NITRD lSN CG, are recent examples of this. Outreach to the user community and 

demonstrations of new capabilities for SON and big data flows across 100-gigabit networks 

were also recently coordinated by the LSN CG, highlighted by the operations of SCinet at the 

Super Computing 2015 (SC15) conference. 29 

SClS is once again hosting one of the most powerful and advanced 

networks in the world - SCinet. Created each year for the conference, 

SCinet brings to life a very high-capacity network that supports the 

revolutionary applications and experiments that are a hallmark of the SC 

conference. SCinet will link the convention center to research and 

commercial networks around the world. In doing so, SCinet serves as 

the platform for exhibitors to demonstrate the advanced computing 

resources of their home institutions and elsewhere by supporting a 

wide variety of bandwidth-driven applications including supercomputing 

and cloud computing. 

Volunteers from academia, government and industry work together to 

design and deliver the SCinet infrastructure. Industry vendors and 

carriers donate millions of dollars in equipment and services needed to 

build the local and wide area networks. Planning begins more than a 

year in advance of each SC conference and culminates in a highintensity installation in the days leading up to the conference. 

Additional examples that demonstrate the result of federally funded R&D through the help of 

the NITRO program include how we are: 

Currently transitioning from the current Internet to SON networking. 

• Currently transitioning to cloud resources and distributed computing. 

• Coordinating each generation of high-end computing technology. 

• Coordinating big data transfers for scientific research (e.g., Large Hadron Collider, 

astronomy community, bioinformatics, real-time instrument control, such as for 

Tokamak control and management, and so on). 

29 SC15 The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis. 

November 15-20, 2015, Austin, TX. 

http:ljsc15.supercomputing.org/sites/all!themes/SC15images/SC15ConferenceProgramFinal11.14.pdf. 

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Coordinating across agencies and with industry, academia, local communities, and 

governments at all levels (local, state, federal, and internationally) on the NIST Global 

City Teams Challenge, Smart and Connected Communities Framework, and US IGNITE. 

Coordinating on research on cyber-physical systems and robotics. 

lastly, 1 would like to cite relevant closing remarks from the NITRO 20th Anniversary 

Symposium, held in 2012, on the NITRO Program's contributions:30 

At today's Symposium, we've been treated to extraordinary 

presentations describing both the progress and the promise of our field. 

We've heard about human language technology; autonomous vehicles; 

sensing; privacy; security; software; scientific discovery; data-driven 

approaches to health, to science, to reasoning. We've learned that 

advances in computer science have an extremely broad role. In 

medicine, that role certainly includes electronic health records, but it 

also includes evidence-based medicine, automated diagnosis, and the 

complete instrumentation of the body. In energy and sustainability, that 

role certainly includes high performance computing as utilized by the 

Department of Energy's Office of Science, but also sensors in homes for 

energy management: smart homes and smart offices as the leaf notes 

of the smart grid, a focus of DoE's Office of Energy Efficiency and 

Renewable Energy. In transportation, we will eventually see the 

widespread use of autonomous vehicles, but we are already benefiting 

from capabilities such as adaptive cruise control, anti-lock brakes, and 

automated stay-in-lane systems that can increase the utilization of 

existing highways, and continued advances in logistics that allow 

companies such as Zipcar to increase the utilization of vehicles, better 

amortizing the economic and environmental costs of their production. 

17. What important research areas do you believe the NITRD program should focus on in 

the future? 

The 2015 PCAST recommendations provided an excellent set of recommended research areas 

for the future. These included cybersecurity, health IT, big data and data-intensive computing, 

cyber-physical systems, privacy, cyber-human systems, 31 high-capability computing, and 

foundational IT research. In my testimony, I called out three areas where I would like to see 

NITRO have an increased focus and highlight them here again: 

"' NITRO 20"' Anniversary Symposium. 2012. Closing remarks 

https://www.nitrd.gov/nitrdsymposium/speakers/closing.aspx. 

31 As defined by PCAST, cyber-human systems "consist of large-scale network devices that allow people to 

communicate, collaborate, and carry out activities of normal life through online platforms" (p. 14) and 

" ... [encompass] communication and coordination of people, computational systems and methods supported by 

people, and socially intelligent devices and systems, in addition to human use of computational services." (p. 34) 

See Report to the President ond Congress Ensuring Leadership in Federally Funded Research and Development in 

Information Technology. August 2015, President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology: 

https :1/www. whitehouse.gov /sites/ default/files/microsites/ ostp/PCAST /nitrd report aug 2015.pdf. 

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• Big data and data-intensive computing; 

• High-capability computing for discovery, security, and commerce; and 

• Cyber-human systems. 

My testimony explains why I called these three out. In brief, I called out the first two because 

they have such a large impact both within and outside of the NITRO Program agencies: both 

call for an all-of-government approach. I called out cyber-human systems because many of the 

new directions in which NIT R&D is being applied have people in the loop: cross-agency 

collaboration is required to make progress here as well. 

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Questions submitted by Rep. Randy Hultgren, Member, Subcommittee on 

Research and Technology 

1. How should we improve our interagency working groups at NITRD to better serve our 

research capabilities and connect the core capabilities certain agencies may have? 

Under the NITRO Program, there are close to 20 groups coordinating across agencies on IT R&D 

plans and activities. To be successful requires hard work, but there are areas where improvements 

could help make interagency coordination more efficient and effective. 

PCAST recommended improving the processes by which the NITRO groups are established, 

monitored, and terminated, and clearly defining each group's relationship to the NITRO PCAs. 

Using charters to create and manage the lifecycles of the groups, including defining what type of 

group each one should be (e.g., Working Group, Task Force, etc.), is an excellent process 

improvement that the NITRO NCO is implementing. 

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Questions submitted by Rep. Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on 

Research and Technology 

1. In his hearing testimony, Dr. Seidel recommended better coordination between the 

NITRD Subcommittee and Committee on Science Subcommittees under the National 

Science and Technology CounciL Do you agree with this recommendation? If so, what 

steps do you believe the NITRD Subcommittee can take to increase such coordination? 

If not, why not? In answering this question, please describe how the NITRD 

Subcommittee currently coordinates with the scientific users of itiformation technology 

so that their needs and expertise are represented in NITRD priorities. 

Yes, I do agree with Dr. Seidel. NITRO would welcome better coordination with other groups 

within the National Science and Technology Council, and will work through the NSTC to identify 

potential partners. 

For the most part, the coordination between domain scientists and agency program officers and 

scientists takes place at the agency level. For example, the Department of Energy's ESnet works 

on a continuing basis with science discipline communities to project developing and future needs 

for IT resources of the science discipline communities. ESnet does this by holding periodic 

workshops with each science discipline expected to have growing needs for IT resources: the 

resource needs of each science discipline are updated every three years. These resources include 

networking that supports data movement and real-time modeling needs, data storage, access to 

both centralized and distributed computational resources, security, applications support, and 

virtual collaboration environments. The science discipline communities they support include, but 

are not limited to, the large Hadron Collider (LHC) program; astronomical data, modeling, and 

real-time collaboration; tokamak modeling and real-time analysis; bioinformatics; earthquake 

modeling; weather prediction and modeling; and climate change analysis. 

Other coordination takes place at the NITRO Working Group level through meetings and 

workshops. This coordination includes, but is not limited to, working with domain scientists for 

high performance computing and data analytics. For example, to develop a federal strategic plan 

in cybersecurity, the Cybersecurity and Information Assurance R&D Senior Steering Group (CSIA 

R&D SSG) has met with lawyers, social scientists, and representatives from the U.S. Census 

Bureau and the National library of Medicine. Such coordination happens as needed. As we write 

new charters for our groups, we are including such coordination activities in the groups' charters. 

2. One of the issues we have heard raised in previous hearings and PCAST reports is 

how exactly to count research infrastructure as part of the NITRD budget The 

demand and cost for infrastructure is high and growing, accounting for a significant 

fraction of the total NITRD budget. However, as I understand it, there remain open 

questions about what to count and not to count, for example the large databases 

maintained by many of the mission agencies such as NASA. How should 

infrastructure be counted under NITRD, and do you have any processes in place to 

develop and maintain clear categories? Would there be value in a strategic plan or 

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roadmap covering all of NITRD infrastructure, or are the needs and types of 

infrastructure too diverse? 

The confusion arises, in part, because of the ambiguous meaning of "NITRO infrastructure." 

Some infrastructure, such as NSF's Global Environment for Networking Innovations (GENI) 

project, is used to conduct IT research that further advances IT. Other infrastructure makes 

heavy use of leading-edge IT R&D (i.e., "leadership-class and production HEC systems"), but the 

research it supports is, for the most part, outside of the NITRO portfolio. Both are important, 

but should be treated separately. Further confusion arises because some infrastructure is 

reported in the same category as the research it supports (e.g., in CSIA), yet HEC infrastructure 

is reported separately from HEC R&D. Both of these issues have been brought up in recent 

PCAST reviews of NITRO. 

Following the PCAST recommendations, NITRO is revisiting the way infrastructure is reported in 

the annual, legislatively mandated NITRO Budget Supplement. 

3. The NITRD Program represents a very large and diverse investment in many topics and 

many fields within science and engineering. In recent years, the NITRD agencies have 

undertaken more narrowly focused strategic plans, for example in cybersecurity, and 

now in privacy and big data. When not specifically directed by Congress, /row do the 

NITRD subcommittees choose which areas will most benefit from a strategic plan? Is 

there still value in a NITRD-wide strategic plan covering the full $4 billion investment? 

Is some kind of planning or vision document other than a strategic plan more useful 

and appropriate? 

There are several reasons why a group will undertake developing a strategic plan. In some 

cases, it is because Congress directs us to do it, which is the case for the 2015 cybersecurity 

strategic plan that is currently in draft. In other cases, interagency progress makes it clear that 

it is time to produce a strategic plan, which is the case with the Big Data strategic plan currently 

in draft. In yet other cases, a PCAST recommendation resonates with a NITRO Working Group 

that then takes on the responsibility of launching and coordinating a strategic planning activity, 

as with the national privacy research strategy effort. 

In response to a PCAST recommendation, NITRO did develop a strategic plan, which was 

released in 2012. It is available at www.nitrd.gov/Publications/StrategicPiansAII.aspx. In 

addition, NITRO has reported on strategic priorities, plans, and activities in the annual NITRO 

Budget Supplement document. Starting in 2016, NITRO Program activities will be expanded 

upon in a separate report that will describe the key focus areas and activities of the Program 

over the previous year, and will include information about our strategic planning efforts. 

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Appendix A- NITRO Agencies 

NITRO Member Agencies 

Department of Commerce (DOC) 

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

(NOAA) 

Department of Defense (DoD) 

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) 

National Security Agency (NSA) 

Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) 

Service Research Organizations (Air Force, Army, Navy) 

Department of Energy (DOE) 

National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) 

Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability 

(DOE/OE) 

Office of Science (DOE/SC) 

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) 

National institutes of Health (NIH) 

Office of the National Coordinator for Health 

Information Technology (ONC) 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 

Department of Justice (DOJ) 

National Institute of Justice (NIJ) 

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) 

National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) 

National Science Foundation (NSF) 

NITRO Participating Agencies 

Department of Commerce (DOC) 

National Telecommunications and Information 

Administration (NTIA) 

Department of Defense (DoD) 

Military Health System (MHS) 

Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research 

Center (TATRC) 

Department of Education (ED) 

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 

Indian Health Service (IHS) 

Department of Interior (Interior) 

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 

Department of Justice (DOJ) 

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 

Department of Labor (DOL) 

Bureau of labor Statistics (BlS) 

Department of State (State) 

Department of Transportation (Don 

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) 

Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) 

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Department of the Treasury (Treasury) 

Office of Financial Research (OFR) 

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) 

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) 

General Services Administration (GSA) 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) 

Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) 

Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity 

(!ARPA) 

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) 

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 

National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) 

Appendix B- NITRO Working Groups 

Interagency Working Groups (IWGs) 

Cyber Security and Information Assurance (CSIA) 

High End Computing (HEC) 

Coordinating Groups (CGs) 

High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS) 

Human Computer Interaction and Information 

Management (HCI&IM) 

large Scale Networking (lSN) 

lSNTeams: 

Joint Engineering Team (JET) 

Middleware and Grid Interagency Coordination 

(MAGIC) Team 

Social, Economic, and Workforce Implications of IT and IT 

Workforce Development (SEW) 

SEW Teams: 

SEW-Collaboration Team 

SEW-Education Team 

Social Computing Team 

Software Design and Productivity (SOP) 

Video and Image Analytics (VIA) 

Senior Steering Groups (SSGs) 

Big Data (BD) 

Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) 

Cybersecurity and Information Assurance R&D (CSIA 

R&D) 

Wireless Spectrum R&D (WSRD) 

Communities of Practice (CoPs) 

Faster Administration of Science and Technology 

Education and Research (FASTER) 

Health Information Technology R&D (HITRD) 
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Responses by Dr. Gregory D. Hager 

Questions submitted by Rep. Barbara Comstock: 

1. Can you explain how national user high performance computing facilities help the US 

maintain global leadership in research and innovation? 

There are many ways in which high performance computing (HPC) facilities directly contribute 

to maintaining US global leadership in research and innovation. In 1985 the NSF started a 

national "HPC centers program" that not only kept the US at the forefront in many areas of 

science, but it became a model for the world, with many nations following suit. Since that time, 

in virtually every area of research (not only in science and engineering but increasingly in the 

arts and humanities), in virtually every area of industry (across many market sectors from 

aerospace to energy to medicine and big pharma), and even in nontraditional areas of 

application such as sports (major league baseball teams now purchase supercomputers for "Big 

Data" analysis to develop strategies to improve their team's performance), HPC is a valuable 

tool to advance our ability to address complex problems across science and society. Those 

nations with more capable facilities, and with the tools and technical/scientific expertise to take 

advantage of them, are able to advance faster, addressing more complex problems, with more 

relevance to real-world solutions for society, than those without them. Simply put, a vibrant 

high performance modeling, simulation and data science ecosystem is essential for global 

leadership in science, engineering, and innovation for the US, and for all advanced nations. 

There are many examples of breakthroughs in science and engineering that could not have 

been addressed in any other way than through HPC/Big Data approaches (as noted below, 

these two approaches go together, but now I just use "HPCD" for brevity). Our ability to 

understand complex black hole phenomena in the unive'rse, or to design a more efficient jet 

engine, is dependent on applications, and future advances, of HPCD. 

All HPCD centers have similar cases to make, but I will focus on NCSA as I am most familiar with 

it as its director. For three decades NCSA has been the home to globally leading advances in 

science, engineering, and industrial R&D. Most recently, its Blue Waters facility, the most 

powerful in the academic world, has been used for innumerable discoveries in basic research 

(e.g., How does the AIDS virus work at the molecular level? large-scale Blue Waters simulations 

combined with data from light sources have shed new light on this virus.) and advances in 

applied engineering (e.g., How can one desalinate water cheaply and effectively using 

nanopores? large-scale Blue Waters simulations showed a new way to achieve this.) These and 

many other investigations could not be done at the same level of depth, or even at all, on less 

capable facilities. Many more challenging studies and astounding discoveries yet await far more 

powerful HPCD systems. 

NCSA has had a vibrant private sector program serving one-third of the Fortune 50 to advance 

US industrial competitiveness. And out of NCSA's innovative HPC environment was born the 

graphical web browser, Mosaic, that led to commercial web browsers such as Internet Explorer 

that have powered many US high tech regions such as Silicon Valley, and are estimated to have 

added more than a trillion dollars to the world economy. HPCD centers have a significant, 
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direct, and immediate impact on US national economic competitiveness, and their impact will 

increase as HPCD systems become more capable and more available to US industry. 

As a center where advances in HPC and Big Data will continue, NCSA (and other HPCD centers) 

continues to be the home of many future advances that will help maintain US global leadership 

in both research and innovation. To illustrate, I give one example that combines discovery 

science, practical engineering, and economic leadership, all in one: turbulence in jet aircraft 

engines. The basic equations governing this process were written down in 1810 but they have 

eluded detailed solutions for two centuries. Advances in HPC in the coming decade (creating a 

machine roughly 100x Blue Waters, and applications that can effectively use it) could enable US 

companies, such as NCSA industrial partner General Electric, to effectively model this process, 

resulting in more efficient jet engines. Even an increase in efficiency as small as 1% would lead 

to many billions of dollars in savings in US jet fuel costs. In order to achieve such results, an 

integrated approach combining multiple aspects of the National Information Technologies (NIT) 

ecosystem, including collaborations of scientists and engineers from academia and industry to 

develop to new science, new algorithms, and new software, combined with adequate access to 

new and more capable HPC facilities, will all be required. 

For these reasons, the recent National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI) should be seen not 

only as critical for the nation's international scientific leadership, but even more importantly, as 

a critical vehicle for maintaining US economic leadership in a highly competitive world. NSCI 

rightly singles out NSF as a key integrator of the NIT ecosystem, with DOE playing a key 

leadership role in the march towards useable exascale HPC systems. However, other nations 

are not standing still, and are increasing their investments significantly in their own HPC 

ecosystems. For example, China overtook the US lead in supporting the mast world's most 

powerful HPC system five years ago, and has maintained that lead every since. Other countries, 

including Russia and Japan, have programs to invest aggressively in this space for the reasons 

above. Europe has a long-term funded program for HPC applications and a comprehensive 

initiative to understand the human brain, whose foundation is built on the best HPC systems. 

Hence, it is vital to the interests of US leadership in science, engineering, and industrial 

competitiveness that NSCI succeed. NITRO, groups under the Committee on Science, and the 

participating agencies of the NSCI will need to work together with Congress in order for the US 

to maintain its current overall leadership. (I believe some changes should be made to the way 

these activities are coordinated to better connect the NIT communities with other scientific 

communities. See Q1 from Rep. Hultgren below for more detailed suggestions on this topic.) 

2. In your testimony you mentioned that NCSA is too deeply engaged in numerous "big 

data" projects. What can be done to lighten the burden placed on NCSA while 

generating the same volume of research without compromising results? 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify, as I meant to imply the opposite point (see 

below for my actual written text)! Traditional HPC centers, including NCSA, are now (and should 

be) deeply engaged in big data projects. My primary point was to highlight the important role 

that HPC centers do, and need to, play in Big Data for the nation. Big Data implies Big Compute. 
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Examples of this include deep machine learning, image processing and graph analytics methods 

that are highly computationally intensive. HPCD Centers such as NCSA have enormous 

computing, storage, and networking capabilities, as well as critical expertise in managing, 

storing, serving, linking, preserving, computing on big data that takes decades to build up. 

The important role of HPCD centers should be explicitly recognized, and further, they are 

natural sites to build upon for many aspects of Big Data. Doing so will leverage existing 

concentrations of expertise and facilities, creating many synergies while also lowering overall 

costs as infrastructure, staff, and services needed for HPC can also be used for big data. For 

example, the University of Illinois invested more than $100M to build and operate a facility for 

the NSF Blue Waters project. The same facility, and the expertise associated with it, is being 

used to support the data storage, services, and tomputing needs for the NSF-DOE Large 

Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), currently under construction for about $700M. Exploiting 

such synergies lowers the overall costs of the LSST construction and operations while just as 

importantly ensuring appropriate technical and management expertise can be leveraged for 

effective operations. 

Further, it is difficult and expensive to move big data, so using HPC centers as data services 

centers (HPCD!) exploits the local computing capacity of HPC centers, and eliminates or reduces 

the costs (in terms of both complexity and monetary costs) of transporting data. Large HPCD 

centers cost millions of dollars per year just for electricity, and a substantial fraction of that is 

for managing data. One should keep data near computing, and not move it unless one has to! 

For the record, in my written testimony that led to this question, I wrote: 

As with all major national computing centers, NCSA too is deeply engaged in numerous 

"big data" projects, illustrating a key point: big data and big computing go hand-inhand; one is intrinsically integrated with the other. 

3. How can the problems you mention in your written testimony that are beyond reach of 

any individual group, discipline, or approach be brought into reach? 

Many complex problems face science, industry and society today, such as "How can we 

maximize food production in the Midwest while lowering costs?", "How can we predict 

earthquakes with much more precision, what are the proper mitigation methods to use for 

buildings, and how to enable much more effective emergency response?", "How can new 

materials be developed that will revolutionize the electronics industry, speeding computing 

while lowering power requirements, each by factors of thousands or millions?", or "How do 

bacteria or viruses operate at the molecular level and what drugs will be effective without side 

effects?" and so on. All of these questions are, in principle, amenable to computational and big 

data approaches, but to answer them effectively, with definitive real-world answers, requires 

not only major advances in computational and big data capabilities, but also the integrated 

expertise of many different areas of science and engineering. 
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In order to accelerate advances to such problems, investment in HPC/Big Data facilities alone is 

not sufficient. A comprehensive program is needed that enables interdisciplinary grand 

challenge teams to form across the necessary research communities (and critically, to train 

students and young scientists to work in these environments; see below), tightly coupled to 

programs that simultaneously advance new computing and data facilities, new algorithms, and 

new software tools. Programs are needed that bring grand challenge research communities 

together around such complex problems, hand-in-hand with programs that advance the 

technologies themselves. I believe this is so important that I have recently organized a new 

directorate at NCSA around six thematic grand challenge areas, including a "Culture and 

Society" area that among other things will study how collaborations operate. 

Such a "grand challenge communities" program would likely need to cut across agencies as 

well, as the problems at stake require groups that may traditionally be funded by NSF, NIH, 

DOE, and so on. The National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI) would be a natural vehicle to 

develop such a program, which would likely require specific appropriations to fund effectively. 

While NSF has been called out specifically as the key leadership agency to help integrate 

different parts of the ecosystem for such programs, the NCO, with appropriate input from the 

Committee on Science, should play major role in bringing together agencies to address such 

issues. 

I would be happy to discuss these issues further, as I have spent much of my career on 

developing such programs both as a member of various science communities, and during my 

time at NSF. 

4. What benefits would broadening the ecosystem to include major digital instruments and 

their coordination reap? How can the investment in the NIT infrastructure be Invested 

more coherently? 

There is a both a strong need and a major opportunity to include major digital instruments and 

experimental facilities (e.g., MREFC projects in NSF parlance) as an integral part of the NIT 

ecosystem. Science and innovation could be better served and significant costs savings could be 

realized if this were done effectively. Key elements of the reasoning for this include: 

Major experiments (e.g., light sources, accelerators, etc.), instruments (e.g., LIGO, 

lceCube, etc) and/or observing system projects (e.g. NEON, LSST, ALMA, etc.), are highly 

digital in nature and generally use a very significant amounts of their budgets to build 

one-of-a-kind NIT infrastructure just for their instrument. They each generate huge 

amounts of data, each require massive computing, storage and high speed networking, 

and each require a critical mass of NIT expertise. Often the projects are "more silicon 

than steel" meaning the traditional "steel and glass" instrument, e.g., the telescope, is 

now merely a peripheral to the significant NIT infrastructure needed to operate it. But 

these instruments do not each need fully independent investments and operations for 

this infrastructure. 

The technologies that collect/generate data in these instruments are advancing very 

rapidly so that future generation instruments (e.g., planned upgrades to DOE light 
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sources, such as Argonne's Advanced Photon Source) will require peta-to-exascale 

computing capabilities just for data analysis. Therefore, this problem is intensifying 

rapidly. It will not be feasible to build independent HPC and data facilities for each such 

instrument. They must be planned and developed together over decadal timescales. 

However, current practice still has most such large instrument projects developing their 

own NIT infrastructure. While the instrument may cost of order $500M to $18 or even 

significantly more to build, and similar amounts to operate, large fractions of the costs 

of each instrument (hundreds of millions of dollars) are for their NIT infrastructure 

alone. Thus, such projects have a tendency to "reinvent the wheel" when they could 

instead leverage or combine similar investments and expertise at major HPC/Big Data 

facilities. (The LSST, described above, is building its data and computing service with 

NCSA exactly for these reasons, and is a rare exemplar for what could be done by other 

projects.) 

• Scientific grand challenge problems (discussed above) increasingly require data from not 

just one, but many such instruments and sensor networks, along with peta-to-exascale 

computing capabilities for simulation and modeling combined with observed data. But 

due to the practice of each instrument project developing its own NIT infrastructure 

independently, the ability to combine data from different instruments is inhibited, 

making it harder for grand challenge communities to develop a vaccine for a virus, 

develop a new material for electronics, or understand a gamma-ray burst in the 

universe. For example, data from not only LSST but also LIGO, ALMA, and other 

instruments will need to be combined with large scale HPCD simulations to understand 

such cosmic events. While LSST will be connected to NCSA's HPCD facilities, much work 

will still be needed to integrate data from other instruments. 

Another attribute of the culture to create instrument-specific NIT is that often the 

software is also designed as a one-of-a-kind effort, focusing on the initial, experimentspecific implementation of NIT. This often duplicates efforts, sometimes with lower 

quality than other efforts that could be leveraged, and adds costs. Even more, it adds 

substantial change costs, to adapt to ever-improving next generation HPCD hardware. 

Software efforts are typically not funded nor managed appropriately. Short term cost 

savings lead over the long term to serious inefficiencies in both performance and cost. 

Given sufficient planning horizons for development of major scientific instruments, with much 

deeper coordination among projects and participating agencies, along with more stability and 

continuity in the funding cycles of major HPCD Centers, significant synergies could be 

developed that both (a) better serve the complex problems addressed by science communities 

and (b) significantly reduce overall costs as existing infrastructure and expertise could be 

combined and leveraged. 

The promise of such an integrated effort could be realized, but would need to be examined to 

understand how best to find synergies, manage the coordination of funding, to renew NIT 

investments that need reinvestment on shorter timescales than "glass & steel" instruments, 

etc. Community efforts to look at these issues by groups involved are just beginning (see, e.g., 

sciencedrivenCI.org for one community-driven concept that speaks to this issue). The NSCI 
107 

provides a perfect opportunity to examine these issues and to develop new approaches to 

address them, with participation from agencies such as NSF as a key integrator, along with DOE, 

DOD, NIH, NASA and other agencies, and coordinated by NCO. 

I believe such a revamping of this system of federal NIT investments that include major 

instruments and experiments, could better serve research and industry communities to address 

complex problems while at the same time saving many hundreds of millions of dollars, or more, 

overtime. 

5. Please discuss the importance of federal investments in networking and information 

technology research and development and why the NITRO program is important. 

Federal investments in NIT research and development are critical for two key reasons: (a) they 

support and catalyze many if not most of the advances in fundamental technologies, 

methodologies, and their applications to NIT activities that power 21" century society and the 

economy, and (b) they support and enable virtually other all areas of research in all science and 

engineering areas and their applications to drive economic progress. For example, the internet 

itself and the web browser, now our primary tool for interacting with every computer, mobile 

phone, and now even automobiles and home appliances, are direct results of federal 

investments in NIT research. Google itself can be traced to NSF grants, that very quickly 

developed into a world force for economic and societal development. 

In terms of application of NIT investments to support all other areas of research, I have made 

many arguments above that show that all areas of research are profoundly enabled by 

advances in NIT investment. Put even more strongly, many research endeavors that will lead to 

developments of vaccines that save lives, more efficient planes, more accurate hurricane and 

better earthquake forecasting would be impossible without current NIT capabilities. Their 

advances are completely dependent on future NIT advances. Such advances result largely from 

federal investments rather than strictly private sector investments. While investments in all 

areas are needed, I know of no other federal investments that have as much potential to lay the 

groundwork to advance all areas of research, engineering, and economic development than NIT 

investments. 

Specifically regarding scientific computing investments, critical for all areas of research, most 

have come from federally funded research, including the software and algorithms used in the 

largest systems. These techniques have often been adopted by industry (for example MPI, the 

default method for data communication in HPC, is probably the best, most comprehensive 

example, but there are many software packages that have been adopted in industry). Federal 

investments have also impacted the development of hardware from microprocessors to 

memory to networking technologies. These developments influence designs in the larger 

commercial market to make them more effective in meeting US needs. Of course, it works both 

ways! Developments in the commercial sector for commodity hardware has often impacted 

supercomputer design as well, as most visibly achieved with the Beowulf project where it was 

shown that commodity computer systems could be used to build powerful HPC clusters, 
108 

influencing an entire generation of supercomputer designs, and enabling significant advances in 

discovery science and industrial innovation across the world. 

As for the NITRO program itself, as the primary coordinating body at the federal level for NIT 

cooperation across all relevant federal agencies, it is essential that it be funded appropriately 

and that it function effectively. Today's research and development activities are increasingly 

complex and interdisciplinary, and they do not respect disciplinary nor agency boundaries. For 

example, work to understand the AIDS virus and its susceptibility to possible drug therapies 

requires expertise in fundamental physics, chemistry, biology, computer science, mathematics, 

electron microscopy, medicine and ultimately medical trials; virtually all this work requires 

coordinated advances in HPC and large scale supercomputers, Big Data from instruments such 

as advanced light sources, and advanced software to make it all work. In order to be not only 

cost effective, but even possible at all, coordination and collaboration across the disciplines and 

communities must take place, connecting multiple agencies that traditionally support these 

disparate communities: NSF, DOE, NIH, and others. NITRO's mission and effective coordination 

is essential for this to work properly. 

6. Where should Congress focus its federal IT R&D investments when it faces tough budget 

and deficit decisions and why? 

As stated above, I believe, and many studies show, that federal investments in IT R&D pay very 

large dividends to the economy and to society, and on increasingly short time scales (measured 

here in a small number of years rather than decades). Further, NIT investments, particularly 

those that directly support HPC simulation, modeling, and big data applications, are now, more 

than ever, essential to support progress in all other areas of basic and applied research and 

engineering (that themselves pay large dividends to the US economy). NIT investments are a 

rather small fraction of the overall federal R&D investment portfolio. Therefore, efforts to 

preserve or modestly increase investments in these essential NIT areas, even in an era of 

difficult deficits, are not only needed to support all science and innovation, but will pay benefits 

and help drive economic recovery over not-so-long term. I will point out that while DOE 

budgets in HPCD reflect this growing need, and have increased somewhat over the last decade, 

NSF budgets in this area have essentially been flat. NIH, which depends largely on NSF and DOE 

HPCD facilities, has not yet developed its own HPCD strategy. As competition for time on NSF 

facilities increases as need grows faster than capacity, NIH's growing needs will be much harder 

to satisfy. NSCI asks that these agencies and others develop coordinated strategies for such 

investments, which is absolutely critical for success of the future of science and innovation. 

At the same time, it is very important to optimize across a complex portfolio of different NIT 

investments. For example, improvements in algorithms and software can far exceed capabilities 

of advances or larger investments in HPC hardware, so attention given to these areas, including 

the scientific and engineering applications that utilize them, can provide as much or more 

overall capability that mere hardware investments alone. These "soft" investments have 

typically lagged the hardware investments. (When I was at NSF, in order to address these 
109 

issues, I did increase funding in the software, algorithm, and application areas as a start on this 

problem. But more needs to be done.) Simply said, smart investments pay off more! 

Another critical NIT area that I have not mentioned above is cybersecurity, which should be 

thought as critical to the national security as well as having many other benefits for the kinds of 

R&D mentioned above. This would include many aspects, from quantum information science 

to networking and cryptography. 

A last but critical point to make is simply that flat federal investments in NIT areas will 

perpetuate the bottleneck in tyring to grow university programs (including growing the number 

of faculty needed, who depend on federal grants sustain their programs) to train the next 

generation of students and NIT-savvy workforce. There is tremendous need for growth in this 

workforce, but universities struggle to grow their programs without concomitant federal 

investments to support them. (See below for more detail.) 

a. Can you recommend where significant savings can be achieved within the NITRO 

portfolio? 

Given the importance to the nation of the overall investments in NIT R&D, the primary ways I 

can see where savings could be found are twofold. The first concerns how some investments in 

the NITRO portfolio, for example, those that enable virtual experiments to be done on 

computers, may be able to reduce dependency on physical laboratories. While this is especially 

true in teaching, in many cases simulation and modeling have now reached a high level of 

maturity, and big data approaches will soon follow, that can significantly augment and possibly 

reduce investments in other kinds of physical infrastructure. Investments in one type of 

infrastructure can strongly impact other kinds. For example, many chemical or materials 

properties can be computed reliably by simulation, reducing the need for physical 

infrastructure. (This was a key idea behind the Materials Genome Initiative of 2011, which was 

largely created as a vehicle for economic development.) Such tradeoffs should be examined 

given the rapidly changing methods towards a more digital and virtual approach to R&D. 

Second, I believe savings might be achieved are through looking for synergies in programs 

where collaboration across agencies might be improved, where development and operation of 

large digital instruments (e.g., from NSF, DOE, NIH, NASA, etc) could more deeply connected to 

other investments in NIT infrastructure, e.g., at existing HPCD centers, national labs, etc. 

Potentially hundreds of millions of dollars, or more, could be saved over time if this were to be 

done, and science could be better served. 

This would require a different approach to planning and funding major digital instrument, HPC 

and data-intensive facilities than is currently common practice. All would require longer 

planning/operating horizons. For example, at NSF, large projects of the "MREFC" class, typically 

costing of order a billion dollars, of which a large fraction is devoted to NIT 

development/deployment, could be planned in a way to leverage each other's NIT activities and 

to connect them to better support research. Data from, say, NSF's LIGO, LSST, and ALMA 
110 

MREFC projects, as well as simulations from Blue Waters class {and above) supercomputers, 

may all be needed to understand a gamma-ray burst, yet currently these projects are funded 

and operated independently. Likewise, DOE will need to do this for its future light source and 

leadership class computing facilities. Likewise, NIH and NASA, etc. But just as importantly, 

coordinating across agencies will be important. Between NSF's MPS Directorate and DOE's 

Office of Science, about 90% of the US physical science research is supported, and many 

communities are already working together on common instrument projects {e.g. large Hadron 

Collider, large Synoptic Survey Telescope, etc.). NSF's MREFC and DOE's CD processes are 

already able to be synchronized for construction of single instruments of importance to both 

agencies. This approach could be applied also across projects and to the HPCD centers, creating 

better synergies over longer timescales, leveraging existing concentrations of expertise, and 

saving funds. 

7. The workforce needs of the IT field continue to grow and will need workers to fill those 

needs. Unfortunately, participation in computer science-related courses does nat seem 

to be growing to meet the needs of employers. What are academic institutions and 

industry doing, and what more can they do to encourage student involvement and 

engagement in computing fields? 

The NIT workforce is the most important asset in our portfolio, far exceeding the value of ony 

investments in hardware, software, etc. This is recognized by many prospective students 

{although there is a serious diversity issue in these communities; female and other 

underrepresented groups constitute only a small fraction of the overall student body in these 

fields, presenting a clear opportunity for increasing the IT workforce which needs much more 

attention. But this must be addressed while also creating more places for students in these 

areas.) let me take this in three different sectors of the NIT space: computer science, data 

science, computational science and engineering {CSE), as the issues are slightly different. 

Computer Science: The University of Illinois has seen the number of computer science students 

double in the last few years, a trend that is common across the nation. However, meeting the 

need for instructors and space in very difficult. There are not enough classrooms, nor faculty 

slots in universities, to keep up with the demand we already have. Beyond space, a key issue 

limiting the number of faculty, who are needed to teach the students, is that federal NIT 

investments that support their programs do not increase with the enrollment of students. 

Success rates for successful funding in computer science is typically 15% or less, with pressure 

increasing, which limits the rate of creation of new faculty positions. So these issues must be 

addressed together: university programs, space on campuses, and federal IT investments 

supporting the research programs that train the advanced students, etc. 

Data Science: At the same time, numerous data science programs are being created, with 

incredible over-subscription {ten-to-one, even fifty-to-one) for available places in emerging 

programs. Many studies show that the number of data scientists needed will far outstrip the 

supply already this decade, and universities are scrambling to respond. But the same faculty, 

space, federal support bottlenecks described above apply here as well. 
111 

Computational Science and Engineering {CS£). CSE is a cross between the above NIT disciplines, 

and the science and engineering areas that require them. Many CSE programs are developing 

across the nation, and many companies that depend on simulation and modeling (e.g., the 

many NCSA PSP partners across five distinct industrial sectors) depend on graduates who are 

trained in these areas. Yet not enough students are trained in these areas for the same reasons 

as above, compounded by the fact that academic programs and federal agencies alike have not 

fully embraced CSE programs nor understood exactly where they should live in their portfolios. 

Among federal agencies, the DOE does the best job embracing CSE training. NSF recently began 

a program entitled "CDSE" to include data science research as well. Programs that support 

these areas that will lead to growth in the numbers of students trained should be strengthened, 

both at the federal and university levels. 

In all these areas, academia is also beginning to take a hard look at the training it provides for 

students. At the graduate level especially, training is often aimed at producing more faculty, 

rather than providing the training really needed either to enter companies as productive, skilled 

workforce, or for entrepreneurship to support new company creation. It is clear that more 

training, or a different kind of training, is needed to produce the kinds of skilled workforce 

needed by companies, or to produce graduates who are more able to innovate in terms in 

entrepreneurship. 

This is not only up to universities alone! Companies can influence universities as can federal 

agencies that fund their research programs. NITRO should pay attention to these trends and 

help federal agencies balance portfolios accordingly. 

a. Do you believe that the development and application of IT related systems, 

services, tools, and methodologies have boosted US labor productivity more than 

anything else in recent decades? 

I believe most of my colleagues would agree that this statement is largely true, but I do 

not have clear facts from studies at my disposal to quantitatively back up this statement. 

b. Do you believe that the IT industry will continue to increase the productivity of 

the US workforce? 

Yes, with similar caveats as above. I believe it is quite certain that overall, that investments in IT 

that train more workers, and advance our national R&D capacity in these areas, will pay large 

dividends on the investments. 

8. In previous NITRO hearings, we have heard that NIT's role in national security, national 

competitiveness, and national priorities is far broader than high-performance computing 

alone. Can you expand on how the NIT field has influenced or continues to influence 

national security and competitiveness? 
112 

There are multiple answers to this question. First of all, there is no question that HPC 

has had tremendous impact on national scientific and economic competitiveness. I have 

focused much of the testimony above on the critical importance of NIT, and HPCD in 

particular, to scientific competitiveness. But the case is equally made in industry. Many 

such reports, for example of the US Council on Competitiveness (CoC), has many 

statistics and case studies about the importance of HPC on US economic 

competitiveness. According to the CoC, one of the biggest barriers to competitiveness 

in US industry is a dearth of trained workers in CSE fields, which I have personally 

experienced in discussions with numerous NCSA PSP partners. Many countries are 

increasing their investments in this area specifically to attract new industry or to make it 

more competitive. For example, I know from personal experience that both international 

and Russian companies are advocating for large HPC investments and partnerships 

with Russian universities to make their industry more competitive. 

On the other hand, it is certainly true that a far larger ecosystem of NIT is critical for all 

areas of national security, scientific and economic competitiveness. This would include 

Big Data areas, which as argued above, are related to HPC. But to this I would also say 

that HPCD systems today are the leading edge technologies that make their way into 

commodity systems tomorrow. Today's laptop has the power that was first achieved in 

HPC systems a decade earlier. 

A good balance of NIT investments is required, and HPCD is an important but certainly 

not a dominant part of this ecosystem. 

9. What important research areas do you believe the NITRO program should focus on in the 

future? 

My response is focused primarily on the activities that support all science areas, as 

these are the ones that the most potential for impact in maintaining US leadership, not 

only in NIT, but across all sectors of science and society. 

In the last three decades, the US has established leadership in simulation and 

modeling, applied to all areas of science and engineering, and rapidly adopted by 

industry. While other nations followed suit, the US has maintained an edge in many (but 

certainly not all) areas. This has driven advances across all areas of science and 

industrial applications, and has found its way into many areas of instrumentation. For 

example, due to advances in HPC, algorithms, and software, US research groups have 

led the world in applications to simulate advanced systems in astrophysics, materials, 

chemistry, and econometric modeling, leading to numerous Nobel prizes, while also 

powering industry from designing better detergents to improving aircraft design. 

These areas of investment must continue to for the US to continue to lead, and need to 

be expanded in certain areas. HPCD systems are becoming more complex, and much 
113 

larger, requiring more focus in programming models, software tools, and algorithms, 

and the applications that can take advantage of them. This will require programs that 

not only fund these technologies, but teams of science communities to drive and use 

them for complex problems. 

Research into the hardware itself requires investment, as we have nearly reached 

fundamental limits of the number of atoms needed to build a switch in a microprocessor. 

New approaches to chip design, including quantum approaches and quantum 

information science, are also needed to continue the race for faster and more capable 

systems. 

Further, the challenges are not only on HPC systems, but in the broader ecosystem of 

computing systems connected to data intensive instruments. For example, over half of 

the projects running on Blue Waters require data inputs and outputs for real-world 

results, a trend which will continue to require more deeply integrated computing and 

data intensive environments. This the brings in not only the central importance of optical 

networking to transport the data between HPC and data systems, but the entire realm of 

data intensive science for which new data services are required to realize the potential 

of Big Data. 

On this backdrop, as science and engineering research around complex grand 

challenges becomes more prevalent, the need to combine numerous approaches from 

HPC systems, instruments, data services, and connected by optical networks, will drive 

more complex workflows to be developed that make such work possible. This will 

further complicate the difficulty of usability of not only high end HPCD systems (for 

which significant work is needed just to more effectively use a machine with potentially 

millions of processors), but even more, the entire complex ecosystem. Work will be 

needed to enable, automate, and reproduce scientific work in these complex 

environments. 

In many cases simulation and modeling on HPC systems are deeply coupled to Big 

Data to create a complex ecosystem, as argued above, but data-intensive science itself 

brings in new approaches that are even more broadly applicable across science and 

industry. New approaches to storing, linking, discovering, reproducing, and computing 

on data sets must be developed. The integrity of the scientific process itself is at stake, 

as digital data, linked to publications of scientific results, can in principle be used to 

more rapidly disseminate results, make them available and discoverable across 

interdisciplinary communities, and provide a unique opportunity to check and even 

extend the results of scientific work. Economic benefits may also arise if data from 

science results are directly linked to publications, as companies may be able to more 

rapidly adopt results into their own R&D projects, enabling more rapid development of 

products into the marketplace from initial discovery in labs. This is basic idea of the 

Materials Genome Initiative, aimed to bring products to market at twice the speed and 

half the cost of current approaches. 
114 

This new data world will have associated costs. How will we pay for the storage, 

dissemination, and services associated with data? Federal investments are part of the 

answer, but all must contribute to these costs of such services, including universities, 

companies, and other agencies (e.g., state and local). These issues should be 

examined for what investments will be need at the federal levels. I believe that while 

significant, investments to enable good data stewardship and services around scientific 

research, that will accelerate discovery, enhance interdisciplinary research, and more 

effectively support reproducibility of scientific results, are well worth the costs. If only a 

few per cent of federal research budgets were devoted to preserving and openly 

disseminating digital results of scientific work, the overall scientific, innovation, and 

economic capacity of the nation would increase by much more. 

Questions submitted by Rep. Randy Hultgren 

1. How should we improve our interagency working groups at NITRO to better serve our 

research capabilities and connect with the core capabilities certain agencies may have? 

A number of recommendations have been made by the PCAST subcommittee 

reviewing NITRO (which falls under the Committee on Technology) to update antiquated 

working group structures, which are good steps forward. And NITRO's excellent 

leadership team is responding very well to these recommendations. But I believe they 

do not go far enough to integrate science and innovation activities with NIT activities, 

but they need to in order to more effectively support developing trends in science and 

innovation described above, and to do this in a more cost effective way. 

The NITRO working groups are generally (and naturally) focused on NIT-related issues, 

rather than the science issues. But NIT issues are largely driven by, and fundamentally 

enable, virtually all other areas of scientific research and innovation. As stressed above, 

the research areas are driving NIT technologies in new directions and combining them 

in new ways (e.g. they are driving the emergence of large instruments as NIT 

infrastructures themselves that must be considered an integral part of the NIT 

ecosystem). The complex scientific research activities are now more deeply, and 

inextricably, intertwined with NIT activities. These trends should be reflected in the 

coordinating structures of federal NIT investments. I believe that this cannot be done 

effectively strictly under the Committee on Technology alone. 

Therefore---and this is my primary recommendation for this question---/ believe it is 

essential that a broader set of coordinating activities that includes activities under the 

Committee on Science be considered. This would bring together the groups that are 

envisioning the future of science and innovation with those envisioning and planning 

future NIT investments that are both driven by and enabling the scientific work. 
115 

Enter the National Strategic Computing Initiative, or NSCI. This is a very good 

approach, with the breadth of activities needed to plan for both a major transformation 

of the science and innovation landscape and the NIT technologies that will be needed. 

NSCI also has the long-term planning horizon (15 years) that will be needed if we are 

create new federal collaborative funding and management vehicles that will more 

effectively coordinate investments in both national NIT and scientific instrument 

infrastructures so that effective leveraging can be achieved, better supporting trends in 

research while potentially saving significant federal funds over time. Among other 

considerations, a rethinking of the NSF MREFC and DOE CD processes might be 

required, as well as new mechanisms for similar-scale investments under NIH, NASA, 

DOD, etc. 

This a very ambitious agenda, that will require significant work and focus of attention 

from Congress, OSTP, OMS, and participating agencies. But it is an agenda that 

should provide a clear focus for both NITRO and its counterparts under the Committee 

on Science that could guide federal agencies to achieve these goals. 
116 

Responses by Dr. Edward Seidel 

Response of Dr. Gregory D. Hager 

to questions posed by the Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Questions submitted by Rep. Barbara Comstock. Chairwoman. Subcommittee on Research 

and Technology 

1.. How did PCAST choose the eight key areas to focus on for findings and recommendations? 

In selecting the topics to focus on for this NITRO review, our working group examined previous 

NITRO reports, consulted with experts, and debated within the committee to establish the eight 

prioritized areas. The choice of areas represents an amalgam of topics that are collectively both 

timely, and which, with investment, could have large societal impact. 

Two of those areas, Health and Cybersecurity, were chosen as they are among our most 

important national priorities. Although they were also called out in prior NITRO reviews, the 

consensus was that they continue to warrant attention and investment. Two other areas, Big 

Data and IT Interaction with the Physical World, represent areas that are currently undergoing 

rapid evolution and transformation. They are benefitting from recent government initiatives 

but deserve continue attention and stewardship due to their enormous future potential. 

Privacy and Cyber-Human Systems arise from the deepening integration of people with 

information technology. This is an area where technology innovation in the private sector is 

often outstripping the development of basic scientific principles to underpin and guide these 

developments, and to anticipate future risks. 

The final two, High-Capability Computing and Foundational IT research, reflect the consensus 

that we must also pay attention to the technology base on which all of the uses of IT depend. 

Indeed, these foundational investments are in fact investments that will benefit all areas of ITbased research. 

We also note that some areas that were singled out in earlier NITRO reviews are now 

incorporated within one of the eight topics described herein. For example, software is a crucial 

component in any use of information technology and no topic can be treated without 

consideration of its software aspects, but this report does not include a separate section on 

software. Finally, we emphasize that coverage of topics in our report is selective, not 

comprehensive- the decision to not highlight any particular topic in this review does not signal 

a lack of importance or opportunity to do more in that area. 
117 

2. Out of all af the recommendations that you helped to put together on the NITRO program, 

what do you believe are the most important to be implemented in the immediate future, and 

why? 

I would note that the recommendations can be viewed as falling into three categories: 1) 

recommendations that agencies make specific coordinated research investments, 2) 

recommendations related to workforce education, and 3) recommendations related to NITRO 

organization. Of these, I would note that the third (NITRO organization) has been a priority in 

several past NITRO reports. In my opinion, undertaking a modernization of the NITRO program 

component areas, and a concomitant rethinking of the NITRO working groups is an essential 

first step that can be carried out relatively quickly. Undertaking this reorganization will, in turn, 

create a NITRO organization that will be more effective at promoting priorities within its 

participating agencies, and assessing the participation of those agencies in programs responsive 

to our recommendations. 

In establishing priorities, I would also like to caution that it is tempting to focus resources on 

what seems to be an immediate need- for example funding cybersecurity research due to the 

growth in successful attacks. I would however strongly council to maintain a broad and 

balanced program of IT R&D funding that seeks to advance knowledge for medium to long-term 

advantage as well as addressing more immediate needs. I would also council to maintain 

consistency of objectives. Training (or retraining) researchers takes time and effort- often 2-4 

years- before they are able to contribute at the leading edge. Translation of results into 

practice can take just as much time. Thus, shifts in priorities must be done carefully, 

thoughtfully, and with a multi-year commitment in mind. 

3. Considering the amount and scale of cybersecurity attacks that we have witnessed in the 

past year, how can the NITRO program address system vulnerabilities to prevent or mitigate 

these kinds of attacks in the future? 

The NITRO program itself cannot prevent or mitigate these kinds of attacks- rather it is the role 

of the NITRO program to highlight and catalyze the need for research in areas and to promote 

coordination of R&D to reduce the possibility of such attacks. It is also important to understand 

that many of these attacks are successful due to multiple factors, both human and technical--

for example, failures in the installed software base to enforce best practices to eliminate known 

vulnerabilities, failure to use the latest software releases and failure to guard against 

unauthorized access. While research can provide new tools and approaches to addressing 

current and future system vulnerabilities, implementation of best practices is a very effective 

means of mitigating vulnerability to attack. 

That noted, the fundamental cybersecurity research supported by NITRO agencies will have 

considerable long-term benefit. It is tempting to think of security in terms of creating an 

impermeable perimeter; but this is really just one aspect of security. We should move toward a 

security model where we develop systems that are resilient to attack. That is, if infiltrated, they 

are able to continue to function, they isolate the potential damage from an attack, and they 
118 

capture information that will aid in tracing the source of the attack. The PCAST NITRO review 

outlines several specific areas of research along these lines. 

Current research supported by NITRO also includes work focused on building a "science base" 

for trustworthiness- a set of abstractions, principles and trade-offs for building trustworthy 

systems given the realities of the threats, our security needs, and a broad collection of defense 

mechanisms and doctrines. Such a science base will help us navigate the issues at the 

intersection of technology and policy (economic and regulatory) that characterize potential 

solutions to our cybersecurity issues. Other research areas are highlighted in answer 5, below. 

Additionally, an often overlooked but key benefit of the Federal investment in fundamental 

cybersecurity research at U.S. universities is that it produces the trained students who will form 

the core of the workforce charged with tackling these issues moving forward. 

4. Do you find that, in the wake of cyber breaches, agencies are more inclined to conduct 

more research and development in the area of cybersecurity? 

Agencies have clearly responded to the need for additional research in cybersecurity, to the 

extent that available funding permits- for example NSF's establishment of the Secure and 

Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program. However, echoing my responses to 2 and 3 above, 

without additional new monies, I would caution against overly aggressive diversion of resources 

into cybersecurity at the expense of all other areas of IT R&D. 

5. Is there more that agencies can do in the realm of cybersecurity research and development 

in addition to the recommendations included in the PCAST report? 

Research that improves cybersecurity is broad and multifaceted, and can thereby engage a 

broad spectrum of the computing research community. For example, research in programming 

language design or in operating system design or in core software capabilities can make it 

easier to create trustworthy software. Research in machine learning can enable better ways to 

identify vulnerabilities or more quickly detect intrusions. Better methods for identity 

determination than passwords can reduce unauthorized use. Indeed, nearly any area of 

computing research could contribute in some way to better cybersecurity. In short, 

cybersecurity could be used as a motivating application for many areas of computing research. 

6. The San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California recently launched 

"Comet," a new petascale supercomputer. How does the NITRO program support 

supercomputing and projects like Comet? 

It is important to understand that the spectrum of high-performance or high-capacity 

computing applications is broad and multi-faceted. There are problems that are amenable to 

readily available commercial systems, there are problems that require petascale computing, 

and there are problems that can only be solved by exascale computing. And, it is safe to say 

that in the future we will wish to address problems that go well beyond the scale of computing 
119 

we currently envision. This frontier has proven to be an extremely valuable driver for the 

creation of technologies that are then applied throughout the computing value chain. 

Systems such as Comet play a key role in servicing the demands of the so-called "long tail" of 

applications which do not demand the absolute highest performance currently available, but 

which cannot be readily solved by commercial systems. Further, it fills this gap in a particularly 

flexible and cost-effective manner. It is also important to consider that the evolution of large 

scale computing is no longer just the province of the "highest flops" machine. New data 

intensive architectures are now a parallel element when we discuss high performance 

computing. 

The role of NITRO in such projects is to help to identify the unmet needs of the research 

communities that stand to benefit from new computing resources, and to provide a clearing 

house for discussions as to where investments would yield the maximum return on investment. 

I would note that the role of NITRO is complementary to the recently announced National 

Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI) which provides an opportunity to define the future of 

high-capacity computing in a broad sense. NSCI will provide new energy and impetus to 

convene a broad and ongoing set of conversations among both the "producers" and 

"consumers" of high-capacity computing capabilities, an activity that NITRO will undoubtedly 

help to convene and to stimulate. 

6a. What is the significance of a new petascale supercomputer? 

As noted above, the significance of a new petascate supercomputer is, quite simply, an 

acceleration of advances that depend on these computing resources. As I have noted in my 

testimony, experts have indicated that other nations have a much better developed national 

system of computing resources; Comet and systems like it help to reduce their lead. A 

secondary effect of new systems like Comet is they provide the flexibility to experiment with 

new ways to allocate or partition computing resources- for example the idea of creating 

"virtualized clusters" allowing more researchers to use resources more effectively customized 

to their problem. 

7. Please discuss the importance of federal investments in networking and information 

technology research and development and why the NITRO program is important. 

We have discussed the importance of IT R&D in the section of our report entitled "The 

Importance of Sustaining Government Investments in IT R&D" (pages 15 and 16 of the PCAST 

NITRO review). In particular we note many reports, for example a recent report by the National 

Research Council (NRC)\ have documented the importance of long-term research in creating 

1 Computer Science and Telecommunications Board; "Continuing Innovation in Information 

Technology," National Academies Press, http:/ /www.nap.edu/catalog/13427 /continuinginnovation-in-information-technology 2012. 
120 

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many of the most successful IT-based industries. A particularly useful depiction of the impact of 

basic research and the subsequent evolution of those ideas into products can be found in 

Figure 1 of that report which is reproduced below: 

In this chart, the bottom lists areas of IT research; the red lines indicate when academic 

research in the area began and was active. The blue lines indicate when associated industrial 

research took place. The green lines indicate when products based on this research were 

offered, and the width of the line indicates the scale of the market- thin solid green is a $1B 

market; the wider green indicates a $lOB market. At the top are arrayed the companies that 

have been created and their placement is a rough association to the research areas. The thin 

lines crossing between verticals illustrate the impact of cross-fertilization within an area and 

across areas. We refer to the CSTB report for additional details. 

As we note in the PCAST NITRO review, the impact of computing research and development is 

expanding, and has increasing impact on many sectors of the economy and in society at large. 
121 

As such, we can expect that computing research will continue to evolve in a direction that links 

core computing research with high-value application areas- defense, health, manufacturing, 

urban infrastructure, transportation, education, and so forth. As such, NITRD coordination 

among agencies with high capacity for basic research (e.g. NSF or DARPA) and agencies that 

have mission-focused research needs (e.g. Transportation, Education, HHS) will continue to 

grow in importance. 

8. Where should Congress focus its federal IT R&D investments when it faces tough budget 

and deficit decisions and why? 

In my view, "top down" 

dictation of spending 

priorities may lead to 

more inefficiencies than 

benefits. It is first 

important to emphasize 

that budget limitations 

have already severely 

impacted the United 

States science ecosystem. 

The United States has lost 

its place as a leader in 

scientific research broadly 

-for example a recent 

The U.S. has Fallen to 1oth place in R&D Investment 

U.S. ranking among OECD nations by national R&D lnvestmentas a j')E'f('ellh.l.ge ofGDP 

report by the American ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ m ~ g ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ g ~ 

of the Arts and 

highlights the 

fact that the US is now 10'h within OECD nations in terms of investment in R&D as a percentage 

of GDP as illustrated in the Figure 1B of that report, reproduced above. Nations such as Japan, 

Korea, and Germany all significant technology competitors are growing their investments at 

a much higher rate. 

The impact of the under-funding of science is clear to see. Funding approval rates for major IT 

R&D programs in research agencies such as NSF and NIH are sometimes in the single digitsthat is, fewer than one proposal out of every ten submitted is funded. This not only creates 

incredible inefficiencies in the writing and reviewing of unfunded proposals, but also 

discourages younger researchers from pursuing careers in science and places our future 

innovation capacity at risk. 

With this in mind, I would strongly advocate that Congress, rather than mandating where 

funding is spent, allow the NITRD agencies to set their own priorities to ensure they maintain a 

2 Restoring the Foundation: The Vital Role of Research in Preserving the American Dream, 

2014. 
122 

robust and broad-based program, and one which encourages the most creative and 

enterprising researchers to pursue their ideas. 

a. Con yau recommend where savings can be achieved within the NITRO portfolio? 

As noted above, the current system is creating tremendous overhead, on the part of 

investigators, per dollar won from federal sources. Current investments in research could be 

made more effective by ensuring that the dollars spent for research are not consumed by the 

overhead of managing the funding itself. For example, the requirements associated with 

monitoring performance and managing compliance divert a significant and growing amount of 

investigator time and institutional resources away from research. Establishing a more efficient 

system for such monitoring would enable an increase in research productivity at the same cost. 

A recent NRC report "Optimizing the Nation's Investment in Academic Research: A New 

Regulatory Framework for the 21st Century: Part 1"3 provides a detailed review and 

recommendations in this area. 

9. The workforce needs of the IT field continue to grow and will need workers to fill those 

needs. Unfortunately, participation in computer science-related courses does not seem to be 

growing to meet the needs of employers. What are academic institutions and industry doing, 

and what more can they do to encourage student involvement and engagement in computing 

fields? 

As I noted in answer to questions during my testimony, on the contrary, demand for education 

in computing is enormous and increasing rapidly. Recent data from the Computing Research 

Association's Taulbee survel indicate rapid growth in the number of students majoring in 

computer science. Reports from various universities indicate an equally rapid growth in the 

number of non-majors taking computing courses5

• Computer Science departments around the 

country report being overwhelmed by students. Beyond this there is now a growing ecosystem 

of training programs to teach basic programming skills to non-specialists.6 

The major limiting factor in nearly all programs and at all educational levels is the human 

resources to teach all of these learners, not student demand. Universities are challenged to 

meet this demand as this growth is happening at a time when the private-sector demand for 

the students and researchers who are suited to academic careers is also at its highest. As a 

3 Optimizing the Nation's Investment in Academic Research: A New Regulatory Framework for 

the 21st Century: Part 1, bttp://'I\IW\,V.n(lp,E:!tJU/c?ti31c>g/~1803/op~if11i~ing~tbE!~I1a!ic>ns~ 

~nvestment-i~-academic-resea_r~h-a-new_:r:_egulatory_~l!l i=1ZJl'!,lQJOR,E29NKG,DG2ill,l, 2015 

http://archlve2.cra.org/uploads/documents/resources/crndocs/2014-Taulbee-Survey.pdf 

5 http://lazowska.cs. washington.edu/NCWIT.pdf 6 As Tech Booms, Workers Turn to Coding for Career Change, 

hru:>JJ\NW\iV,!lYJlr!lE!~,f.Omj201?LQZ/.1':JL!~bDOi2&Yic:ode-academy-as-career-g(!meC:h<JD!iE!r.,J:l!l!ll?__r_':(), July, 2015. 
123 

result, competition within universities as well as between academic and non-academic 

organizations is intense and dramatically exceeds the existing pipeline of available talent. 

Thus, the opportunity space is to create incentives and programs that ensure the short and 

long-term supply of trained professionals who are career computing researchers and teachers 

so that we do not "eat our seed corn" as we noted in our report. 

a. Do you believe that the development and application of IT-related systems, services, 

tools, and methodologies have boosted U.S. labor productivity more than anything 

else in recent decades? If so, why do you believe this to be the case? 

Will the IT industry continue to increase the productivity of the U.S. workforce? 

In my opinion, the facts are clear. Referring again to the chart in question 7 above, in the 

roughly 60 years since the first commercially available computers were offered, numerous 

highly successful IT-related companies have grown to become multi-billion dollar enterprises. 

Three of the top 10 companies by market capitalization are IT-related companies (Apple, 

Microsoft, and Google). IT-related activities comprise over 7% of the US GDP. No other industry 

sector, to my knowledge, has grown at this rate. 

These trends can be expected to continue. Much of this growth, in my opinion, will be driven by 

the expansion of IT beyond data and information, and into the physical world. Automated 

transportation and agriculture, more productive manufacturing, in-home assistant for the aged 

or infirm are all examples of sectors that stand to be revolutionized by IT. 

10. In previous NITRO hearings, we have heard that NIT's role in national security, national 

competitiveness, and national priorities is far broader than high-performance computing 

alone. Can you expand on how the NIT field has influenced or continues to influence • 

national security and competitiveness? 

For this question, I would refer back to my answers to previous questions. Namely, there is a 

well-established evolution from basic research to applied research, products, and finally major 

industries across multiple areas encompassing cybersecurity, healthcare, defense, 

manufacturing, transportation and so forth. 

11. From your perspective as the co-Chair of the NITRO working group of P-CAST, which 

consisted of experts from academia and industry, would it be beneficial to have industry 

more engaged in the NITRO program? If so, in what way and why? 

As noted by Dr. Marzullo in his testimony, it is important to first note that Industry is engaged in 

the NITRO program at many levels. In some cases, agency programs include industry partners 

(e.g. within DARPA). In other cases, industry co-invests as in the recent NSF partnerships with 

Intel on Cyberphysical Securit/. Many workshops, including both workshops organized by 

7 http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14571/nsf14571.htm 
124 

NITRO as well as workshops organized by member agencies, include industry participants. 

Finally, there is constant engagement with industry at the "grass roots" level among 

investigators and their students. 

There are of course other opportunities to grow industry engagement. Creating programs that 

are leveraged by industry investments, or programs that leverage industry trends can "grow the 

pool" beyond what is possible within current federal budgetary constraints. Industry can often 

provide non-monetary resources that are of high value- unique infrastructure, data sets, 

testbeds- and which also serve to help orient the research community toward the most 

relevant problems. 

12. In your testimony, you discuss the P-CAST recommendation that the National Science 

Foundation should sponsor broad foundational research on methods to facilitate end-to end 

construction of trustworthy systems; particularly for emerging application domains, and on 

ways to anticipate and defend against attacks. 

a. What is entailed in end-to-end construction of trustworthy systems? How 

difficult is it to achieve? 

The term "end-to-end" refers to the fact that any single vulnerability in a system puts the entire 

system at risk, even if the rest of the system is robust in its cybersecurity. Historically, systems 

were constructed monolithically (i.e. as a single integrated unit), making cybersecurity 

somewhat easier to manage. Today, systems are typically composed of distributed and diverse 

units, often created at different times by different organizations. This approach has numerous 

advantages by providing for more agile and cost-effective system construction, but it creates 

new challenges in ensuring that the overall system is secure. 

In many cases, industry does not have adequate tools to develop and maintain end-to-end 

trustworthy systems- that is why it is posed as a research challenge. Part of the challenge is 

creating technical abstractions and related tools that support the construction of complex 

trustworthy systems. Part of the challenge is to also understand the role of human frailty in 

systems and to find ways to overcome vulnerabilities caused by inadvertent or deliberate 

human misbehavior. 

b. Do most systems have end-to-end security by construction? Please explain why 

or why not. 

No, most systems have been developed over time, and, in some cases, incorporate components 

that were designed and created when cybersecurity was less of a concern. Modifying such 

systems is challenging from a technical perspective and expensive. For a variety of reasons, 

systems already deployed are often not updated with cybersecurity in mind if they are 

otherwise performing satisfactorily. 
125 

c. Are there consequences associated with not having end-to-end security by 

construction? If so, what are those consequences? 

There are abundant and well-known consequences of having insecure systems. End-to-end 

security is a technical approach to reducing the risks that stem from insecure systems. It is 

worth noting that as systems grow in size and complexity, end-to-end security is increasingly 

difficult to guarantee and, at the same time, the exposure in the case of a security breach 

potentially grows as well. Thus, achieving very large-scale secure and trustworthy systems is a 

particular challenge. 

d. Do you believe that it is important to have end-to-end security by construction? 

If so, please explain why? 

It is the belief of experts in cybersecurity that to the extent that it is possible to build systems 

that are designed with cybersecurity in mind, the risk of successful attack is reduced. It is clear 

that systems composed of components, as I have described above, has numerous advantages 

over more monolithic approaches. Thus creating methods to construct complex secure systems 

will be essential in the future. 

13. What important research areas do you believe the NITRO program should focus on in the 

future? 

lnformati()n technology evolves continuously and rapidly. As our Working Group noted in the 

report, our choices today are governed by the evolution of technology itself, the implications of 

that technology for society, and the influence of society on technology needs. The research 

questions of the future will be necessarily different from the issues of the present and are 

difficult to predict. Indeed, this is why continuous review of our research investments in IT R&D 

is important-- to keep identifying the important topics of the time in order to maintain the lead 

that the U.S. has enjoyed so far. 
126 

Questions submitted by Rep. Randy Hultgren, Member, Subcommittee on Research and 

Technology 

l. How should we improve our interagency working groups at NITRO to better serve our 

research capabilities and connect the core capabilities certain agencies may have? 

Most participants in working groups volunteer their time. In some agencies, the management 

doesn't recognize participation in NITRO working groups as part of the job description. More 

appreciation of the value of coordination and explicit recognition for this activity within the 

agencies is needed. This would both make the participants more empowered and effective in 

serving the US research enterprise and it would serve to highlight the role of this coordination 

and thereby better engage and empower the NITRO working groups. 
127 

Questions submitted by Rep. Daniel Lipinski. Ranking Member. Subcommittee on Research 

and Technology 

1. In his hearing testimony, Dr. Seidel recommended better coordination between the NITRO 

Subcommittee and Committee on Science Subcommittees under the National Science and 

Technology Council in order ta ensure that the needs and expertise of the scientific user 

community are represented in NITRO priorities. Do you agree with this recommendation? If 

so, what steps do you believe the NITRO Subcommittee can take to increase such 

coordination? If not, why not? 

There is no question that there is a growing cross-fertilization of ideas between IT R&D 

communities and science communities. Diverse fields such as astrophysics, genomics, and social 

science increasingly rely on computational advances to build instruments, collect data, and 

perform analysis. In this regard, there is real value in ensuring robust discussions between the 

NITRO subcommittee and the subcommittees on science. The question of whether there is 

adequate coordination, and how such coordination might be facilitated is however not a topic 

that arose in our review and it is therefore difficult to provide any authoritative advice on this 

question. 

2. One of the issues we have heard raised in previous hearings and PCAST reports is how 

exactly to count research infrastructure as part of the NITRO budget. The demand and cost for 

infrastructure is high and growing, accounting for a significant fraction of the total NITRO 

budget. However, as I understand it, there remain open questions about what to count and 

not to count, for example the large databases maintained by many of the mission agencies 

such as NASA. How should infrastructure be counted under NITRO? Would there be value in a 

strategic plan or roadmap covering all of NITRO infrastructure, or are the needs and types of 

infrastructure too diverse? 

The important issue is not to confound large shared infrastructure funding with funding for the 

research it enables. Both are important, as is striking an appropriate balance. The committee is 

undoubtedly aware that computing and networking are ubiquitous, that many NIT 

infrastructure investments do not support R&D at all, and that some investments in NIT 

infrastructure largely support R&D in disciplines other than computing research. In order to 

ensure that the portfolio is managed well, it is important to distinguish those different kinds of 

investment. Whether certain infrastructure such as large databases is counted in the cross-cuts 

depends on how useful compiling that information would be in informing investment decisions. 

For example, one might expect that data investments have increased as data analytics have 

become more important for a diversity of fields, and that infrastructure that supports the 

collection and analysis of data maybe useful to track. This may, in turn, allow one to determine 

how much such infrastructure contributes to the cost of doing research, and whether that cost 

of additional infrastructure is well justified when weighed against other areas of research. This 

is of course true more broadly of infrastructure investments-- the fact that the infrastructure is 

IT-based is secondary. 
128 

3. The NITRO Program represents a very large and diverse investment in many topics and 

many fields within science and engineering. In recent years, the NITRO agencies have 

undertaken more narrowly focused strategic plans, for example in cybersecurity, and now in 

privacy and big data. When not specifically directed by Congress, how should the 

NITRO subcommittees choose which areas will most benefit from a strategic plan? Is there 

still value in a NITRO-wide strategic plan covering the full $4 billion investment? 

Is some kind of planning or vision document other than a strategic plan more useful and 

appropriate? 

The value of a strategic plan is that it helps to identify important determiners of success in 

moving an important field forward, and can then inform investment decisions. Experience 

suggests that because of the large scope and diversity of the program, a NITRO-wide strategic 

plan has been less useful than strategic plans focused on emerging areas in which the 

components of success are more apparent. Vision documents are useful in setting out new 

research directions; they are not the same as strategic plans. 
129 

Questions submitted by Rep. Elizabeth Estv. Subcommittee on Research and Technology 

l. There is a significant mismatch between the pipeline and demand for skilled IT workers. 

This is both a challenge and an opportunity for K·lZ education, where computer science is 

rarely part of the core curriculum. PCAST made recommendations for increased federal 

investment in NIT education and training, and specifically for new or expanded programs at 

NSF and the Department of Education. Or. Hager, can you describe 

PCAST's recommendations in greater detail? How are these recommended programs different 

from existing programs at NSF? 

Computer science knowledge is and will continue to grow as a major part of STEM education. 

NSF has played a strong role in developing and piloting programs to enhance computing 

literacy, particularly in K-12. For example, CS lOk which targets juniors and seniors and is tied to 

the new Computer Science AP examination, and ECS which is targeted at middle school and 

early high school. NSF's role is to create the materials forthese courses, to create and 

assessment tools, and to deploy programs at sufficient scale to determine their effectiveness, 

and to improve or optimize their effectiveness. 

Scaling these programs is the role of other players, including the federal government (through 

the Department of Education), as well the private sector and more philanthropically driven 

initiatives such as code.org. In this regard, Education, with NITRO coordination, can play an 

essential role developing strategies and longer-term plans to ensure that the best available 

tools are made available to education professionals, and training for those professionals is 

made widely available. 

There are two additional areas where more could be done. First, education in computing is 

necessary for all students in the 21'1 century; not just for potential IT professionals. As such, 

Education could be playing a larger role than it is at present in K-12 computing fluency and 

understanding. NSF programs tend to contribute more directly to the IT workforce; expanding 

their scope can broaden the pipeline in a more encompassing way. Second, there is a growing 

need for retraining of the workforce to become more computing literate. There are already 

signs (as noted above), that private concerns are recognizing this need. I believe an opportunity 

for NSF and Education is to create a framework for education and retraining in computing that 

goes beyond just teaching basic programming skills, but is instead aimed at broader life-long 

computing literacy and understanding of computational concepts. 

(131) 

Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
132 

STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY DR. KENNETH BALL

d 

flisON 

UNIVERSITY 

Volgenau School of Engineering Office of the Dean 

Nguyen Engineering Building, Suite 5100 

4400 University Drive, MS 4A3, Fairfax, Virginia 22030 

Email: ball@gmu.edu; Phone: 703-993-1500 

STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD 

BY 

DR. KENNETH BALL 

DEAN 

VOLGENAU SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING 

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY 

FOR 

HEARING 

A REVIEW OF THE NETWORKING AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH 

AND DEVELOPMENT (NITRD) PROGRAM 

THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY 

REPRESENTATIVE BARBARA COMSTOCK, CHAIRMAN 

10:00 A.M., WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2015 

2318 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING 
133 

NITRD Program 

October 28, 2015 

Chairman Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski, and distinguished Members of the 

Committee. 

Thank you very much for holding this important hearing today. Madam Chairman, on 

behalf of George Mason University let me take this opportunity to say how much we have 

enjoyed working with you and your staff on a variety of issues, particularly the Mason 

instructional site in Loudoun County. As you know, our main Fairfax Campus is located just 

outside the lOth Congressional District, and you represent many Mason faculty and staff. We 

thank you for all you do for us, and for your leadership in keeping the United States the global 

leader in science, technology and innovation. I would be remiss if I did not also extend warm, 

personal regards from Mason President Angel Cabrera. 

I also want to recognize the outstanding work of Ranking Member Lipinski. Mason and 

the universities in this country owe a lot to you for your tireless service in advancing a robust 

research agenda. Thanks to both of you, our R&D enterprise is in good hands with the leadership 

of this committee. 

I am Kenneth Ball, Dean of the Volgenau School of Engineering at George Mason 

University. Mason is Virginia's largest public research university. Mason enrolls more than 

34,000 students from 130 countries and all 50 states. Mason has grown rapidly over the past halfcentury and is recognized for its innovation and entrepreneurship, remarkable diversity, and 

commitment to accessibility. You would be pleased to know Chairman Comstock, that there are 

approximately 5,500 students and 27,000 alumni in the l 01

h. Unfortunately, we do not have 

comparable numbers for the 3rd District of Illinois, but I am sure that Mason has a noticeable 

footprint there. 

Mason offers 200 degree programs, including 85 masters and 38 doctoral. In the 2013-14 

academic year, Mason conferred 8,745 degrees, with half that number constituting graduate and 

professional degrees. Mason employs 6,500 faculty and staff to serve our growing student body. 

Relevant to this hearing, the second largest undergraduate program at Mason is Applied 

Information Technology, with close to 1,300 students. 

In addition to our Fairfax Campus and Instructional Loudoun Campus, Mason has a 

campus in Arlington, which houses our Law School, School of Policy, Government, and 

International Affairs, and other programs. Our Science and Technology Campus is located in 

Prince William Country. We recently opened the Institute for Advanced Biomedical Research 

where we do some of the most cutting edge research in the nation on cancer, Alzheimer's and 

other brain related disorders, Lyme Disease, and Diabetes. Our Level-3 Bio-Containment Lab, 

(one of only 12 in the country), which does research on toxic agents is also located there. 

Mason's sponsored research exceeds $100 million. 

Finally, Mason has one of the lowest cohort default rates in the nation at 1.8%. Our 

students graduate with the highest income jobs in the State when compared with other schools. 

Let me now tum to the subject of the hearing, The Networking Information Technology 

Research and Development Program. This is a very important subject and timely hearing. As the 

Dean of the Volgenau School of Engineering, I will attempt to explain how Mason's range oflT 

2 
134 

NITRD Program 

October 28, 20 I 5 

programs aligns witb NITRD and how we contribute to national IT goals. I will share some 

perspectives on NITRD priorities. 

I based most of my investigating on two documents: The PCAST review of NITRO from 

January 2013 and the NITRD FY 2016 Supplement to the President's Budget. The PCAST 

document has (on pages xi-xii) a set of 13 recommendations. I think that all of them are sound. 

Two of them are especially relevant to the Volgenau School: 

Recommendation 1: Big data, NIT-enabled interaction with the physical world, health 

IT, and cybersecurity continue to be important, and while there is noticeable progress on 

interagency coordination since 2010, these areas remain as critical focal points in 2012 

and beyond. Continued emphasis and even greater coordination is recommended. 

Recommendation 4: NSF, DARPA, and agencies that need software tailored to their 

missions must collaborate to support core research that advances design, development, 

modification, and maintenance of all varieties of software, incorporating reliability, 

robustness, security, and specialization for particular domains. Both sustained 

investment to achieve long-term research goals and focused research to address nearterm challenges must be supported. 

A recommendation oflesser significance to Volgenau, but which is definitely important to 

various research groups at Mason is the following one: 

Recommendation 2: The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) should 

create a multi-agency collaborative effort, with the National Science Foundation (NSF) 

and Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) as lead agencies, to develop a 

coordinated cross-agency initiative in social computing, building on the research results 

and understanding emerging from existing programs such as NSF's SocialComputational Systems Program (SoCS). 

The FYI6 Supplement, on page 2, contains the following statement: 

Agencies coordinate their NFIRD research activities and plans in eight Program 

Component Areas (PCAs), which are the major subject areas under which related 

projects and activities carried out under the NFIRD Program are grouped. Budgets for 

the PCAs are reported in the annual NFIRD budget crosscut. The PCAs are: 

Cybersecurity and Information Assurance (CSJA) 

High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS) 

High End Computing Infrastructure and Applications (HEC I &A) 

High End Computing Research and Development (HEC R&D) 

Human Computer Interaction and Information Management (HCI&IM) 

• Large Scale Networking (LSN) 

Social, Economic, and Worliforce Implications of IT and IT Worliforce 

Development (SEW) 

• Software Design and Productivity (SDP) 

3 
135 

NITRD Program 

October 28,2015 

All are important national issues. The ones that have significant relevance to Mason (and 

greatly overlap the recommendations from the first report) include CISA, HCI&IM, SEW, SDP. 

There is also some activity at Mason in High End Computing, and we continue to build capacity 

to become a national leader in this area. 

Before I point to activities at Mason that are related to these topics, let me just put my 

observations into some context as it relates to Volgenau. Our mission at Volgenau is to solve real 

world problems, enhance people's lives, and make the world a safer, cleaner, healthier, and more 

prosperous place to live. Current enrollment is 6,222, and we graduated 1,134last spring. We 

have 165 faculty and 17,000 alumni. The Volgenau School of Engineering's programs cover a 

wide array of disciplines including electrical and computer engineering, computer 

science, systems engineering and operations research, civil, environmental, and infrastructure 

engineering, statistics, bioengineering, and mechanical engineering. This large, multidisciplinary 

school maintains a dual preeminence in both information technology and engineering. 

Volgenau is the first school of engineering in the United States to offer a B.S. degree in 

cyber security engineering, and the first school with scholarships focused primarily on 

information technology-based engineering. Volgenau is ranked 7th nationally for Return on 

Investment by Affordable Colleges Online (2014). Our cyber security program ranked 

7th nationally by Ponemon Institute (2014). We are also ranked 11th Best Graduate Program by 

GraduatePrograms.com (20 15). That same source ranks our Computer Science Department as 

25th best in the nation. 

Let me drill down a bit of the PCAST Report and the FY2016 Supplement. 

Big Data: There is a great deal of activity at Mason in this area. Mason is one of the 

national leaders in data analytics, and a quick overview ofVolgenau's work can be found here: 

http://volgenau.!mlu.edu/big-data. But, let me highlight two of our research centers that are most 

relevant and how they directly benefit society: 

Center for Air Transportation Systems Research (http://catsr.ite.gmu.edu/): Uses big data 

and mathematical models to improve the reliability, efficiency, and safety of the national 

air transportation system. 

Center of Excellence in Command, Control, Communications, Computing, and 

Intelligence (http://c4i.gmu.eduD: Uses big data (and other approaches) applied to 

military applications. 

There is considerable additional work looking at many aspects of big data. The work 

intersects most of our departments. There is also relevant research in the College of Science, and 

in College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Some of this I'll mention below under Social 

Implications of IT. The point is that PCAST's first recommendation should remain a high 

priority and worthy of this committee's continued oversight to ensure national goals are met. 

Cybersecurity and Information Assurance: This is another priority area for research and 

education, and additional information can be found here: http://volgenau.gmu.edu/cybersecurity. Much of the research is associated with two of our research centers: 

4 
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NITRD Program 

October 28, 2015 

Center for Secure Information Systems (http://csis.gmu.eduD: Information systems 

security is of increasing importance in government, military and commercial arenas. The 

Center for Secure Information Systems (CSIS) provides a dedicated environment to 

encourage the development of expertise in both the theoretical and applied aspects of 

information systems security. The CSIS emphasis on information security makes it 

unique among the institutions of higher learning in this country. 

Center for Assurance Research and Engineering (http://care.vse.gmu.eduD: CARE 

offers a full breadth of cybersecurity research and expertise, including securing mobile 

devices and mobile apps, constructing methodologies for development of secure 

software, developing technology and policy guidance for securing critical infrastructure, 

building systems for network intrusion detection and testing for intrusion tolerance, 

developing technology and guidance for Industrial Control Systems and SCAD A 

security, analyzing risks and providing technical solutions for newly connected 

technologies including unmanned aerial vehicles, automobiles and medical devices. 

Relatedly, let me note that Volgenau is also part of the National Science Foundation 

Industry & University Cooperative Research Program. Our leading Center is as follow: 

Center for Corifiguration Analytics and Automation (http://ccaa.gmu.edu/): The goal of 

the Center for Configurations Analytics and Automation (CCAA) is to build the critical 

mass of inter-disciplinary academic researchers and industry partners for addressing the 

current and future challenges of configuration analytics and automation to improve 

service assurability, security and resiliency of enterprise IT systems, cloud/SDN data 

centers, and cyber-physical systems by applying innovative analytics and automation. 

In short, the NITRO CISA Program Component Area is critical to the nation's ongoing 

effort for infrastructure resilience and provides Federal agencies opportunities to leverage 

university research by providing the necessary foundational support. 

Health IT: Volgenau research includes both health IT as well as bioengineering. You can 

get a quick overview here: http://volgenau.gmu.edu/health-care-tech. Volgenau researchers have 

fine-tuned MRI techniques to help patients, developed motor-controlled learning, developed an 

automatic "arm", and used ultrasound technology to study neck pain. Mason's College of Health 

and Human Services has a robust program in Health IT (Health Informatics). Health informatics 

faculty at Mason conduct original research in several areas related to health informatics, health 

information technology, and health services research. Particular research areas of interest are 

electronic/personal medical records, intelligent systems, health care terminologies, data and text 

mining, consumer health informatics, clinical decision support, and health data privacy and 

security. See more at https://chhs.gmu.edu/hap/health-informatics/research.cfm. 

As the nation continues to move medical records to digital media, and as new 

technologies allow for novel medical discoveries, services, treatments, and efficiencies, health IT 

must remain an area of priority. Health IT has tremendous potential. 

Software Design and Productivity: Our Computer Science Department has a number of 

faculty who conduct research in Software Engineering. This is not as prominent, however, as the 

previously mentioned Big Data, Cybersecurity Information and Assurance, and Health IT. 

5 
137 

NITRO Program 

October 28,2015 

Human Computer Interaction: The Laboratory for the Study & Simulation of Human 

Movement https://cs.gmu.edu/-vislab/people.html is devoted to research on developing new 

instrumentation and combining existing instrumentation in new ways to measure human 

movement. The laboratory enables faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates at 

Mason, as well as other universities and agencies, to participate in the exploration of 

human movement study, with the purpose of developing minimally intrusive, wireless 

data capture methodology to measure human motion and designing computer displays and 

graphic-user interfaces from which to model and simulate human motion. The Laboratory 

is part of the Center for the Study of Chronic Illness and Disability in the College of Health and 

Human Services. Volgenau is also involved in this laboratory. 

The Psychology Department in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences also has a 

number of assets engaged in important work using IT technologies and robotics to evaluate and 

improve human performance, including: Auditory Research Group, Driving Simulation Facility, 

Applied Performance Research Lab, Neuroergonomics Lab, Visual Attention and Cognition Lab, 

Cerebral Hemodynamics Lab, Human-automation Interaction Research Group, Cognitive Aging 

Research Group, Social Robotics and Embodies Cognition Lab, Predicting Cognition Lab, and 

the Perception & Action Neuroscience Group. Time simply does not permit more details about 

these labs, more information can be found here: http://psychology.gmu.edu/research/humanfactors-and-app 1 ied-cogn iton-research-labs. 

Social Implications of IT: The major player at Mason regarding the Social Implications 

of IT is the Center for Social Complexity, http://socialcomplexity.gmu.edu/. The Center pursues 

interdisciplinary advanced research and discoveries that support exploration and analysis of 

human social phenomena. One such project uses spatial simulations to investigate the impact of 

disastrous events such as drought on life in Africa's Rift Valley. Another project uses advanced 

computational tools to undertake Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief scenario analysis. 

Chairman Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski, I hope that I have been able to give you 

a picture of how the NITRO program filters down to university research community. It serves as 

the foundation for the research we do, the facilities we build, the students we educate, and the 

problems we solve. While there are some PCAST recommendations and Program Component 

Areas that are more suitable to Mason's mission, other universities may bring different strengths 

and leverage different aspects of NITRO. That is why your continued oversight of the program is 

critical. 

Let me take this opportunity to make one final point that is related to the discussion 

today. We urge this committee to work for a robust cybersecurity R&D program. We appreciate 

that the House and Senate have been advancing important cybersecurity information sharing 

legislation. But, to keep the nation safe and protect our critical infrastructure, there needs to be 

an ongoing effort for advanced research, education, and workforce training that is much bolder 

than currently exists. The House and Senate have moved cybersecurity R&D bills in past 

Congresses, including H.R. 2952, H.R. 3107, H.R. 3834, S. 2105 and other bills. But they have 

not reached the President's desk. 

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We discussed with your committee staff the potential of a grand vision, like a CyberGrant program based on the highly successful 150-year old "Land-Grant" partnership among 

universities, the private sector, and government. While we certainly recognize that the "LandGrant" model is far too ambitious for today's fiscal climate, a more realistic approach might be 

legislation to authorize several competitively-awarded Cybersecurity Centers of Excellence with 

re-programmed funds. The basic idea is to catalyze a long-term research program based on the 

needs of businesses and government to proactively address emerging and unforeseen challenges 

in the cyber world. Universities are best quipped to also take the fruits of that research to the 

classroom and to the user community. It is a looped system that feeds back to the university. 

We urge you to give this idea your consideration. 

Again, thank you very much for the opportunity to present this statement. 

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