VISITING COMMITTEE ON ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY (VCAT)

MINUTES OF THE JUNE 7-8, 2016 MEETING

GAITHERSBURG, MD 

ATTENDANCE:

Visiting Committee 

Members Attending

Adler, Allen

Brooks, Rodney

Colwell, Rita

Garvey, Michael

Holt, William

Ishak, Waguih

Kerr, Karen*

Padovani, Roberto

Prafullchandra, Hemma

Sizer, Theodore

Designated Federal Officer 

Stephanie Shaw 

NIST Leadership Board 

Boehm, Jason

Celotta, Bob

Dimeo, Rob

Fangmeyer, Robert

Harary, Howard

Jenkins, George

Kayser, Rich

Kimball, Kevin

Locascio, Laurie

May, Willie

Messerly, Clyde

Molnar, Michael

Olthoff, James

Porch, Susanne

Rochford, Kent

Romine, Charles (Chuck)

Royster, Cecilia

Saunders, Mary

Thomas, Carroll

Wixon, Henry

NIST Staff and Associates

Acierto, Linda

Bald, Kevin

Banovic, Stephen

Beers, Kathryn 

Brunner, Zahraha

Cavanagh, Richard

Coraggio, Mary-Deirdre

Cranmer, David

Currens, Christopher

Evans, Heather

Fitzgerald, Ryan

FitzPatrick, Gerald 

Fraser, Gerald

Fronczek, Lisa 

Gayle, Frank

Gebbie, Katharine 

Gendron, Cheryl 

Golmie, Nada 

Gonzalez, Carlos 

Greer, Chris 

Gundlach, David 

Hacker, Christina 

Hight-Walker, Angela

Hudson, Steven 

Hughes, Colleen

Jillavenkatesa, Ajit

Kalonia, Cavan

Lin, Eric 

Liu, Rosa

Martinez, Serena

Melkote, Shreyes

Migler, Kalman

Miner, Laurel

Newton, Tom

Orellana, Cindy

Parris, Reenie

Pfefferkorn, Frank 

Pillitteri, Vicky

Plant, Anne 

Porter, Gail 

Reidy, Kari

Richter, Curt 

Roberts, Kamie

Robinson, Crissy

Rudnitsky, Robert

Satterfield, Mary

Schiller, Susannah

Schneider, Barry 

Seiler, David

Silcox, Barbara

Simpson, Michael 

Small, John

Spurrier, Mark

St. Pierre, Jim

Stine, Kevin 

Strouse, Gregory

Tarlov, Michael

Thorne, Roger

Trumpet, Craig

Williams, Carl

Wollman, David 

Yashar, David

Zielinski, Paul 

Others

Doering, Bob - Texas

 Instruments

McMillan, Andy - BACnet

 International

Peniche, Roger - Fluke

 Calibration

Wasserman, Gail - 

 MedImmune

Predmore, Tom - 

 Department of Commerce

Preis, Benjamin – Lewis-

 Burke Associates LLC

 

*Participated Remotely
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Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Call to Order - Dr. Rita Colwell, VCAT Chair

Dr. Colwell called the meeting to order at 8:30 a.m. and went over logistics for the meeting.

OVERVIEW AND SAFETY UPDATE

NIST Update and Agenda Review – Dr. Willie E. May, Under Secretary of 

Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director

Dr. May began with a brief overview of the NIST safety metrics, an update on several major NIST efforts and 

reviewed the agenda. He noted that DART (Days Away, Restricted or Transferred) is projected to increase

from last year and approximately 1/3 of the cases occurred during the major snowstorm in January 2016.

Dr. May updated the VCAT on the verdict of the July 2015 security incident that involved an explosion in 

Building 236, and informed them of the critical steps that have been taken to enhance security. For access 

control, NIST has installed a security portal that connects the open Administration Building to the labs, requiring 

a NIST Personal Identity Verification (PIV) badge to get through. There are additional plans to have other 

security portals installed at additional strategic campus locations as well. Dr. May also reviewed options that 

are being explored to improve perimeter security at the Boulder campus after the unauthorized intrusion earlier 

this year. 

Dr. May then provided the VCAT with an update to the progress against his high-level priorities. He reminded 

the VCAT that one of his first priorities was to fill key senior leadership vacancies. One of those vacancies to 

be filled is the Chief Facilities Management Office. 

Dr. May reminded the VCAT that the MEP program is undergoing a system wide re-competition of all the 

Centers in order to right-size the funding to various states to be congruent with the manufacturing enterprise 

that it serves, as well as strengthen the partnerships with the MEP centers.

Dr. May then addressed his priority of addressing the long-term sustainability of the Baldrige Program. The 

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program is working with the NIST Applied Cybersecurity Division, OMB, and 

industry to explore the development of a Baldrige-based cyber assessment.

Dr. May next described the NIST budget status. The budget resolution for FY2016 this year was different than 

previous years, as NIST did not receive the requested increases in the President’s budget yet, was still directed 

by Congress to support that work at the requested funding levels which required significant reprograming of 

NIST resources. For FY2017 the President’s budget request puts total NIST funding at $1.01B a $50.5M 

increase over FY2016 levels. The House marks for FY2017 would cut the NIST budget by $99M compared to 

FY2016 enacted levels, while the Senate marks would increase NIST’s budget by $10M over FY2016 levels. 

Funding at the House levels would have significant negative impacts including elimination of funding for our 

GHG measurements work, lab to market activities, and support for the Forensic Science Advisory Committees. 

In addition, NIST would not be able to fund additional NNMI institutes or continue much needed renovations in 

Boulder and Gaithersburg.

Dr. May then provided updates about some of NIST’s strategic partnerships. First, the National Cybersecurity 

Center of Excellence (NCCoE) – the Department of Commerce’s first federally funded Research &

Development (R&D) center, and the first dedicated to cybersecurity – had its ribbon-cutting ceremony for its 

new facility on February 8, 2016. The NCCoE has six current areas of R&D: health care, energy, transportation, 

financial services, attribute based access controls, and trusted email. Next, Dr. May highlighted the technical

progress being made in each of NIST’s three Centers of Excellence. 
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Dr. May next asked some of the NIST Laboratory Directors to describe a few recent technical highlights and 

recent awards received by NIST staff. 

Discussion: 

The group discussed the following topic:

- The wide gap of requested funding levels between the President’s request and the House marks for 

FY2017.

For more information, see Dr. May’s presentation.

Safety Update – Richard Kayser, Chief Safety Officer

Dr. Kayser reviewed the latest safety metrics at NIST and provided an update on a number of key activities 

including:

• An overview of a program targeting the causes of slips, trips, and falls which are a major category of 

NIST injuries. 

• An overview of the results of the 2014 NIST safety climate survey. Workplace inspections will be 

implemented in phases one to be completed and in effect by October 2016 and the remaining 

requirements to be in completed and in effect by October 2017.

• Efforts to increase near-miss reporting at NIST as a possible tool to identify unsafe practices earlier in 

order to prevent actual injuries.

• Efforts to improve safety education through the use of "microlearning" -based-training tools that to 

divide information into smaller segments or focused building blocks. They will be spaced out over time 

and delivered via e-mail. Smaller microbursts of information will be less time-disruptive and easier to 

understand. Part of the strategy is to have engaging content, critical thinking exercises, short videos in 

the form of safety bursts, and peer-to-peer conversations. Targeted communications, such as NIST 

safety minutes, will address each block of data.

Discussion: 

The group discussed the following topic:

- Roles and responsibilities of reporting of safety hazards 

- Cost increases and potential problems if there is a lack of funding.

For more information, see Dr. Kayser’s presentation.

Updates on Major Programs: Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity

– Kiersten Todt, Executive Director, Commission on Enhancing National 

Cybersecurity

Ms. Todt gave an overview on the role of NIST to the Commission, how the Commission has been progressing, 

and what the goals are for the next 4 to 6 months.

The Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity was established through a presidential executive order

http://www.nist.gov/cybercommission/ in February 2016. It is hoped that this report will be a roadmap for the 

next administration on cybersecurity. 
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The report is due to the President on December 1, 2016 and will cover eleven key issues. The President 

provided eight issues, and the Commission added three more. The eleven key issues are: 

• Federal Agency Roles and Responsibilities

• Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience

• Cybersecurity Workforce Development

• Security for the Internet of Things

• Research and Development

• Public Awareness and Education

• State and Local Government 

• Data and Identity Theft Protection

• International Norms

• Cyber Insurance

• Metrics

Support teams have been created for each issue, led by an NIST SME. One of the efforts is a research and 

development agenda that NIST is leading in partnership with some researchers at MIT, looking at where the 

gaps are in the current government R&D agenda for the digital economy.

Five public meetings will focus on key issues, for more information see:

http://www.nist.gov/cybercommission/commission-meetings.cfm . 

Discussion: 

The group discussed the following topic:

- A question was asked who were the Commission members. The list can be found here: 

http://www.nist.gov/cybercommission/commissioner-list.cfm . 

For more information, see Ms. Todt’s presentation.

Updates on Major Programs: Forensic Science – Dr. Richard Cavanagh, Director, 

Special Programs Office

Dr. Cavanagh provided an update on NIST’s work in forensic science. Following a 2009 report from the 

National Academy of Science on the state of forensic science, the President’s Commission of Advisors on 

Science and Technology held a workshop and a series of subcommittees on forensic science with the Office of 

Science and Technology Policy. As a result, NIST partnered with Department of Justice to improve the state of 

forensic science. That partnership focuses on three topics: standards of practice for forensic professionals, 

federal policy to meet societal expectations, and research for new or improved methods and data analysis.

The Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) was set up to provide technical leadership to help 

develop and promulgate consensus-based documentary standards and guidelines for forensic science, to have 

standards in place that were based on sound science, to promote the use of OSAC documents through 

accreditation and certification bodies, and to share best practices with other organizations around the world and 

maintain working relationships with similar organizations, which will prevent reinventing the wheel. The end 

goal is to move OSAC outside of NIST while retaining NIST involvement. One model being looked at is the 

National Conference on Weights and Measures. 

The National Committee on Forensic Science advises the Attorney General and makes recommendations. 

Some of the recommendations are universal accreditation for all practitioners in the forensics field, interim 

solutions such as transparency of a quality management system and Automated Fingerprint Identification 

System (AFIS) interoperability, scientific inquiry and research, medicolegal death investigation, reporting and 
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testimony using the term "reasonable scientific certainty" to not be used in courtrooms anymore, and training 

on science and law.

On the policy realm and documentary standards space, NIST is working with Department of Justice to ensure 

the sustainability of support for OSAC efforts. Those efforts require about $3 million in support, which is

currently appropriated to the Department of Justice and then transferred to NIST.

Discussion: 

The group discussed the following topic:

- The potential for damage to NIST's international reputation if prosecutors are involved in adversarial 

relationships. 

- Whether the standards being set up would be complied with by other federal laboratories

For more information, see Dr. Cavanagh’s presentation.

Update on Major Programs: National Network for Manufacturing Innovation

(NNMI) – Mr. Mike Molnar, Director, Advanced Manufacturing Program Office

Dr. Mike Molnar provided the VCAT with an update on the NNMI program, and NIST’s roles under the 

Revitalize American Manufacturing and Innovation Act (RAMI).

1. The “Network for Manufacturing Innovation Program” - to convene and support a network of 

Institutes (network function)

a. The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) has a memorandum of understanding with 

the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Energy (DOE) to increase small 

manufacturer awareness of Institute focus areas and resources, to facilitate small 

manufacturer informing Institute research, to facilitate small manufacturer participation in 

Institute research, and to help deploy results of Institute research to small manufacturers.

b. MEP Centers are being embedded in the NNMI Institutes to enhance the scale of Institute 

impacts on small US manufacturers by conducting new pilot projects and to broaden and 

deepen engagements.

2. The National Program Office (NPO) at NIST – to oversee and carry out the Program (coordination, 

network support, and reporting function)

a. The NPO launched a trial shared services site, implemented a shared calendar, and are in the 

process of setting up a shared practices library.

b. The first Annual Report and Strategic Plan were released.

3. New “Centers for Manufacturing Innovation” – using an open topic competition process (establish 

new Institutes)

a. Dr. Molnar provided the NNMI Network status and 2016 plans. The open topic competition is 

an 18 month process, which is completed in two stages – stage one - the competition 

outreach, the private sector provided 135 discrete topics and the after the request for 

information process, workshops (The NIST Proposers’ Day), webinars (to address resources, 

frequently asked questions and assembling a budget), and public comments, and stage two is 

the competition, the pre and full applications are due, recommendations are sent to the 
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selecting official, final decision is made, and the packages are sent to Grants and 

Negotiations. Then the cooperative agreement will be signed and an Institute award will be 

announced.

Dr. Molnar concluded his presentation by informing the VCAT that along with DOD and DOE, the Department 

of Education, National Science Foundation, and NASA have been extraordinary partners in this endeavor.

Discussion: 

The group discussed the following topics:

- Challenges in the coordination efforts between the NPO and other Federal Agencies,

- Challenges in getting new institutes up to speed quickly 

For more information, see Mr. Molnar’s presentation.

Setting the Context – Dr. Kent Rochford, Associate Director of Laboratory 

Programs

Dr. Rochford introduced the primary topic of the VCAT meeting: achieving balance in NIST Laboratory 

Programs. He pointed out that at previous meetings, the VCAT had expressed concern that NIST was a “victim 

of our own success” and was being stretched too thin. To address this, Dr. Rochford told the VCAT that he 

wanted their perspectives about how to ensure NIST maintains balance between various aspects of its core 

mission in its activities.

Dr. Rochford began by describing how NIST views its core as three responsibilities: measurement science, 

standards, and technology transfer. He outlined how NIST cultivates those strengths through its planning and 

budget structure. Specifically, he highlighted the necessity of intramural research, self-determination, and longterm budget stability as critical to maintaining strength in the core. 

Dr. Rochford then noted that an increasingly important aspect of NIST’s activities is convening, ie, hosting 

stakeholders collaboratively to solve a problem or address an opportunity. NIST is a very attractive host for 

these activities and has had success in those areas. However, as these activities become more external facing, 

they can draw staff and other resources away from other core NIST efforts. NIST is actively trying to achieve 

balance between these convening efforts – whether self-motivated or required by Congress or the 

Administration – and NIST research activities.

Dr. Rochford last detailed the request of VCAT: to help NIST consider this problem. What is the right balance? 

How can we evaluate it? When should we demur and where are we at risk? He then outlined the structure of 

the session. First, the VCAT would hear from a panel of external stakeholders. Second, program managers for 

some of the more notable extramural convening programs would describe the costs and benefits of those 

efforts. Last, the VCAT could discuss these issues with a panel of NIST’s Laboratory Directors about the 

challenges they face in their own Labs.

Discussion: 

The group discussed the following topic:

- How and when can NIST say no to Congress and the Administration on externally-directed convening 

activities.

- What the direct costs of some of these activities have been. 

For more information, see Dr. Rochford’s presentation.
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Panel of Stakeholder Perspectives – Dr. Bob Doering, Research Manager, 

Technology and Manufacturing Group, Texas Instruments; Mr. Andy McMillan, 

President and Managing Director, BACnet International; Mr. Roger Peniche, 

Director of Worldwide Engineering and Product Innovation, Fluke Calibration; Dr. 

Gail Folena-Wasserman, Senior Vice President, Biopharmaceutical Development, 

MedImmune

Each stakeholder provided brief remarks about how they’ve interacted with NIST. 

Dr. Doering with Texas Instruments (TI) stated his first real connection with NIST began in the early '90s when 

TI won the Malcolm Baldrige Award. TI’s interest in quality in manufacturing continues today. The new 

metrology techniques and standard reference materials NIST develops are of great value. NIST’s technical 

literature on specific materials is of great interest to TI. Further, TI looks forward to the benefits of the data 

standards NIST created through the Materials Genome Initiative, which will allow a wider community to 

exchange information. TI is also very interested in the advanced instrumentation and devices NIST develops 

through its fundamental metrology research. Quantum computing is another area of interest for the future, but

Dr. Doering is not sure how TI will use those technologies in any of their products. Last, Dr. Doering highlighted 

conferences as valuable to enhancing communication and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Mr. McMillan introduced himself as a leader with BACnet International, an organization that represents over 

100 corporate members and over 10,000 individual members with a focus on the idea that intelligent equipment 

should be able to integrate systems by communicating through a common protocol. Mr. McMillan began by 

telling the VCAT that his exposure to NIST activities have spanned over three decades and a half a dozen 

companies. NIST played a valuable role in recent fundamental changes to factory automation and commercial 

building automation, by helping the industry go from a traditional supplier-specific communications 

infrastructure to a standards-based open system. NIST’s role was to create a collaboration environment where 

users and suppliers of technology could test out ideas together. NIST’s position as a technically competent 

neutral body helped manage all of the natural tensions and conflicts. NIST also provided guidance on 

navigating the international standards process, adding credibility to standards. Mr. McMillan continued by 

briefly explaining how NIST supported the first attempt to put together a standards-based profile around factory 

equipment communications by building prototype tools.

Mr. Peniche, the Director of Worldwide Engineering and Product Innovation with Fluke Calibration, spoke next. 

He stated that a partnership between Fluke and NIST would help Fluke fulfill its obligations to customers who

want a calibration certification traceable to NIST. Any potential partnership with NIST would be very valuable in 

this regard.

Dr. Gail Folena-Wasserman, the Senior Vice President of Biopharmaceutical Development with MedImmume,

began by telling the VCAT how MedImmune recently expanded collaborations with NIST through a Cooperative 

Research and Development Agreement (CRADA). They have six to eight ongoing projects working through 

one principal investigator at NIST and one at MedImmune. Dr. Wasserman continued by emphasizing 

MedImmune’s interest in NIST developing a reference standard for monoclonal antibodies. Dr. Wasserman 

concluded by stating that quality is important to industry because their goal is to bring new medicines to 

patients. NIST can support this desire for quality by developing new measurement tools. For example, NIST 

has new nuclear magnetic resonance technology that can be used to identify the amino acids that cause 

proteins to aggregate – knowledge that can help improve drug formation stability. One of the projects based on 

the Raman spectroscopy is being able to put it in a high throughput format, screen hundreds of formulations, 

and find just the right one.

The VCAT then asked the panel a number of questions. 
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First, the VCAT asked the panelists what new things NIST could do to help their industries. Mr. McMillan said 

that it might be useful to structure projects recognizing that, after some initial burst of effort, it often takes a 

small amount of continued NIST involvement to maximize impact. Dr. Doering suggested that NIST should 

consider characterizing the changes in standard reference materials over time to allow customers to confidently 

use the materials for longer. Dr. Wasserman emphasized the importance of having NIST actively engage with 

the scientific community to share knowledge and at the same time build connections with companies to find out 

some of ongoing hurdles.

The VCAT also asked what could NIST do to support smaller enterprises and startups. Mr. McMillan said that a 

primary benefit NIST provides is a collaborative environment for smaller companies to build capabilities on a 

common platform without having to build it themselves. 

Panel for CASE STUDIES

In this session VCAT members received briefings on past or ongoing activities that impacted NIST’s core R&D 

mission.

Smart Grid – Dr. Dave Wollman, Smart Grid and Cyber-Physical Systems Program 

Office, Engineering Laboratory

In 2007, by congressional mandate, NIST was given the primary responsibility to coordinate development of a 

framework that includes standards to achieve interoperability of smart grid devices and systems. NIST 

convened a Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) consisting of stakeholders. There was no funding for the 

convening role, therefore it was started on a volunteer-level effort by small teams from several different

laboratories. After the 2008 recession, the administration put an emphasis on smart grid with stimulus funds

and $4.5 billion went towards smart grid deployments through the Department of Energy. There were concerns

that standards in place were not sufficient to support public expenditures. NIST responded by reassigning 

numerous staff to address smart grid. Since most of the one-time ARRA stimulus funding and budget increases

were used to pay for the Smart Grid Office and Smart Grid Framework infrastructure, NIST’s work in electrical 

metrology was put on hold to support NIST staff in SGIP coordination activities.

George Arnold, now retired, launched a very high-visibility interaction with leaders in the community. The White 

House had a kickoff meeting, including the Secretaries of Commerce and Energy and industry CEOs to get 

their buy-in, participate, and support the NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Program, followed up by workshops 

and other activities.

Today, the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel has transitioned to a nonprofit organization, hoping that industry 

will evolve this effort to be a membership dues-based organization. NIST still has a cooperative agreement, 

and the NIST funds will be tapering down, from a million-dollar-a-year level in 2013-15, $900,000 in 2016, and 

then $500,000 in 2018. By rebalancing funds, NIST will increase funding to the research component. Going 

forward, more stakeholder engagement will be implement, such as the Grid 3.0 multi-organization 

collaboration. 

For more information, see Dr. Wollman’s presentation.

Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) – Mr. Kevin Stine, Applied Cybersecurity 

Division, Information Technology Laboratory

In 2013, the President issued Executive Order 13636, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity. NIST was 

directed to work with stakeholders to develop a voluntary framework for reducing cybersecurity risks to critical 

infrastructure. 
9

NIST hosted seven public workshops around the country. Mr. Stine highlighted some of the benefits and 

opportunities, such as strengthening long-standing collaborative relationships with industry; establishing new 

relationships, partnerships, and collaborations with new sectors and organizations; providing an opportunity to 

highlight our technical depth/breadth, and dedicated staff; amplifying awareness of and interest in other NIST 

cybersecurity programs; and increasing our interactions with non-technical audiences. He also highlighted 

some of the challenges, such as the need to divert staffing and other resources from other important work, as 

well as the continued need to meet increasing interest in how to implement and deploy the framework. 

The value of the framework has been widely recognized. The role and approach was reaffirmed in the 

Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2014. The administration continues to turn to NIST on issues of national 

importance in cybersecurity. For example, under Executive Order 13718, the Commission on Enhancing 

National Cybersecurity was established. The interest in and use of the Cybersecurity Framework continues to 

grow.

For more information, see Mr. Stine’s presentation.

5G Wireless – Dr. Nada Golmie, Communications Technology Laboratory

The Communications Technology Laboratory, established in 2014 supports interoperable public safety 

communications, enables spectrum sharing and efficient use of the spectrum, and supports research in 

advanced communications technologies including millimeter wave metrology, ultra-dense networks, and 

massive multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) technology.

Dr. Golmie described NIST's research efforts to develop measurement solutions for these advanced 

communications techologies through the formation of the 5G Wave Model Chanel Alliance. Less than a year 

after its founding, the 5G Alliance has tripled in participation and has plans for workshops co-located with 

relevant stakeholder industry meetings. 

Dr. Golmie discussed some of the short-term milestones and what NIST’s contributions are. She also 

highlighted the cost of NIST’s support role, including a burden on NIST technical staff and the costs of a 

contract to support the working group and online data repository. 

For more information, see Dr. Golmie’s presentation.

PANEL OF NIST LAB DIRECTORS – Dr. Charles Romine, Director, Information 

Technology Laboratory (ITL), Dr. Laurie Locascio, Director, Material Measurement 

Laboratory (MML), Dr. James Olthoff, Director, Physical Measurement Laboratory 

(PML), Dr. Howard Harary, Director, Engineering Laboratory (EL)

In this session VCAT members were able to get the perspectives of various NIST Laboratory directors on the 

challenges of balancing investment in NIST’s R&D programs while meeting external demands and mandates.

Dr. Romine highlighted the value of the Cybersecurity Framework activity has forged new relationships with 

different parts of the industry that is going to pay dividends for decades to come. NIST must manage a balance 

between the high-profile delivery mechanisms and the investment in basic research. Dr. Romine gave the 

example of the health information technology and the Office of National Coordinator for Health Information 

Technology (ONC) partnering with NIST to provide the tools and testing infrastructure for ONC to accelerate 

the adoption of electronic health care records. Almost all research has been cut off due to lack of resources or 

pressure on NIST discretionary funding.
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Dr. Locascio shared her thoughts on the differences between MML and ITL, her researchers are being pulled to 

leadership roles leaving a gap in the research itself. Her example is that MML developed a Genome in a Bottle 

Consortium about microarray standards a decade ago, which grew into standards for the whole genome. 

Because of the success of those efforts, her researchers have been asked to create other groups and panels, 

pulling them away from research. Without new funding in these newly created groups, MML has to reprogram 

staff, which means added responsibility that also depletes the technical expertise.

Dr. Olthoff stated that even though PML has a very different role than other laboratories, as their work validates 

the importance of how to do measurement and improve accuracy, they too have to spread their staff thin when 

they are required to as address specific measurement challenges for external partners such as the Centers for 

Disease Control (CDC).

Dr. Harary shared his perspective that EL is one of the two laboratories that are the principal recipients and 

beneficiaries of legislative mandates, executive orders, and presidential action plans. For example, EL has two 

federal advisory committees that they have the administrative responsibility to run: the National Construction 

Safety Team and the Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazards Reduction. NIST also received 

responsibility to develop a Community Resilience Planning Guide through the President’s Climate Action Plan. 

To provide greater research capabilities in these areas with significant extramural responsibilities, NIST has 

invested in disaster resilience fellows and a Center of Excellence on resilience centered at Colorado State 

University focused on the modeling area, which will be beneficial to NIST in many ways, one of which may be 

new hires.

The VCAT asked for the panelists’ perspectives on the impact of politically charged topics such as voting 

standards. The Lab Directors said that NIST tries to stray away from things that are partisan but, in cases of 

statutory requirements, we really have no choice so we do the very best technical work possible without putting 

NIST in a partisan position.

The VCAT then asked the panelists how many staff are dedicated to externally-driven activities beyond

fundamental research. The laboratories with the most extramural demands – ITL and EL – each have several 

dozen staff out of several hundred that can be dedicated to these activities. Similarly, bench scientists in MML 

and PML may be pulled away from research to participate in and lead standards development activities or 

measurement science outside of their other duties.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Review of National Strategic Computing Initiative – Dr. Carl Williams, Deputy 

Director, Physical Measurement Laboratory

Dr. Williams presentation summarized the National Strategic Community Initiative (NSCI), and NIST’s role in it. 

To support NIST’s efforts in the NSCI NIST requested a $13.75M increase in the FY2017 budget. To jump 

start NIST’s work in this space the ADLP has invested $3M of discretionary funding.

The NSCI principles are to deploy and apply new high-performance computing (HPC) technologies, foster 

public-private collaboration, adopt a whole-of-government approach, and develop a comprehensive technical 

and scientific approach to transition HPC research. Their strategic objectives are to accelerate delivery of a 

capable exascale computer system, increase coherence between the technology base used for modeling and 

simulation, establishing over the next 15 years a viable path forward for future HPC systems even after limits of 

current semiconductor technology is reached, increasing capacity and capability of an enduring national HPC 

ecosystem, and developing an enduring public-private collaboration ensuring research and development 

benefits shared between the Federal Government, industry, and academia.
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The NSCI scope is very large and includes hardware, software, architecture, data analytics, software validation, 

data verification, cybersecurity, and alternative computational paradigms. It requires integration of the program, 

identifying strengths and current investments, assessing gaps, evaluating where NIST should be in a decade, 

and creating a path forward. 

Dr. William’s has formed a multi-laboratory coordination group consisting of researchers from PML, ITL, MML, 

and CNST to roadmap NIST’s approach to providing the measurement research necessary to support the 

development and implementation of future computing technologies. 

NIST’s strengths/expertise are in the areas of research and measurement science but, we lack in the area of 

co-design but, will engage with Department of Defense and DoE who have the expertise.

Discussion: 

The group discussed the following topics:

- Difficulty of keeping up with the speed of change in super computing technology 

- Timeline and staying globally competitive 

- NIST’s position to help industry with limited resources and capabilities

- NIST’s challenge of enhancing reliability, reproducibility, and error quantification in new computing 

paradigms while achieving new modeling capabilities

For more information, see Dr. Williams’ presentation.

Administrative Business

Dr. Colwell reminded VCAT that they need to produce a report by the end of February, and that a main focus of 

the report should be on recommendations for balancing core research and efforts of NIST to ensure that other 

forms of service to the nation are not overwhelming one or the other. Dr. Colwell also enquired how the VCAT 

could help with educating the new administration on the important role of NIST. Because of the traditional 

timing of the VCAT report, the VCAT members discussed whether shorter topic specific papers might be a 

more-timely approach for informing incoming policy makers.

There were no public comments offered.

In closing, Dr. May believes NIST is moving in the right direction, and that NIST needs input from external 

sources to assist in offering maximum benefit to our country.

Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 11:53 AM. 

I hereby certify that to the best of my knowledge, the forgoing minutes are accurate and complete.

Stephanie Shaw, Designated Federal Officer, NIST Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology

Dr. Rita Colwell, Chair, NIST Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology