VISITING COMMITTEE ON ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY (VCAT)

MINUTES OF THE October 6, 2015 MEETING

GAITHERSBURG, MD 

ATTENDANCE:

Visiting Committee 

Members Attending

Chand, Sujeet*

Garvey, Michael*

Holt, William*

Kerr, Karen*

Padovani, Roberto*

Prafullchandra, Hemma*

Sizer, Theodore*

Solomon, Darlene*

VCAT Exec. Dir.

Lellock, Karen

NIST Leadership Board 

Boehm, Jason

Brockett, Del

Cavanagh, Rich

Celotta, Bob

Dimeo, Rob

Fangmeyer, Robert

Harary, Howard

Jenkins, George

Kayser, Rich

Kimball, Kevin

Locascio, Laurie

May, Willie

Molnar, Michael

Olthoff, Jim

Porch, Susanne

Rochford, Kent

Royster, Cecelia

Salber, Stephen

Saunders, Mary

Singerman, Phillip

St. Pierre, Jim

Thomas, Carroll

Wixon, Henry

NIST Staff 

Acierto, Linda

Andrews, Anne

Bonevich, John

Beers, Kate

DeLongchamp, Dean

Evans, Heather

Fasolka, Mike

Guyer, Jon

Hardis, Johnathan

Hight-Walker, Angela

Jillavenkatesa, Ajit

Kauffman, Leah

Kushmerick, James

Lin, Eric

Madsen, Mark

Miner, Laurel

Nair, Rajesh

Nist, Jennifer

O’Rourke, Stephen

Roberts, Kamie

Robinson, Crissy

Salit, Marc*

Schufreider, Jim

Shaw, Stephanie

Stolorow, Mark

Thorne, Roger

Yashar, David

Others 

Endy, Andrew – Stanford 

University*

Voorhees, Peter –

Northwestern University* 

*Participated Remotely
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Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Call to Order – Dr. Roberto Padovani, VCAT Chair

Dr. Padovani called the virtual meeting to order at 9:30 a.m. and he welcomed Todd Sizer as the newest 

member to join the VCAT. 

OVERVIEW AND SAFETY

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

and Technology and NIST Director

Presentation Summary: Dr. May thanked the VCAT for their flexibility in participating in the virtual 

meeting and summarized the conditions in Charleston, SC as a result of historic flooding conditions. Dr. 

May officially welcomed Todd Sizer to the VCAT, indicating that advanced communications is a focus for 

NIST and his expertise is welcomed. 

Dr. May shared that there has been a slight uptick in the number of safety cases and Dr. Kayser would be 

providing additional information on activities NIST has been undertaking to make sure this does not 

become a trend. He also mentioned the incident occurring on the NIST campus resulting in an explosion 

in one of the buildings. As a result of this, Dr. May is asking a group of external experts to review NIST’s 

security policies and procedures and offer suggestions for improvements. The VCAT will be briefed on 

the recommendations during the February 2016 meeting.

Dr. May reminded the VCAT of his primary goals including ensuring NIST has a strong leadership team.

All positions have been filled with the exception of the Associate Director for Laboratory Programs and 

after a nationwide search the review team provided a list of qualified candidates to be interviewed and a

selection will be made in the near future. 

Dr. May outlined the results of the new Colleague’s Choice in Innovations in Measurement Science 

Program that provides an open competition to encourage and reward staff creativity by putting them in 

charge of identifying, selecting, and solving significant challenges in measurement science. This program 

is part of a more general effort to broaden staff engagement. The winning proposal was focused on 

transforming NIST calibration services across the spectrum with new technologies and E-access. This 

represents NIST’s first crowd-sourced effort and improvements are being considered for the next year.

A summary of employee survey results were provided and demonstrate that NIST slightly exceeds DOC 

and the federal government overall in the area of employee engagement. However, this is an area NIST 

is emphasizing and will provide additional information on specific activities the organization is undertaking 

to improve employee engagement at the next VCAT meeting.

Dr. May highlighted that NIST is operating under a continuing resolution that runs until December 11th. 

He shared the House and Senate marks for FY2016 and indicated work is underway on the FY 2017 

budget and details will shared at the next meeting. 

A number of recent staff awards and recognitions were shared including the staff receiving Gold and 

Silver medals from DOC. He also highlighted several NIST staff receiving various awards for technical 

contributions and accomplishments. 
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Dr. May shared information on NIST’s growing participation in prize challenges, including a NIST 

challenge focused on the development of an app using one of the NIST datasets. Through this 

challenge, NIST received 26 apps with participation from more than 130 individuals. A winner will be 

announced in the November timeframe. 

A reminder of the overall NIST organizational footprint, staff resources, primary mission, expanding 

partnerships and collaborations as well as NIST role in redefining the international system of units was 

provided. Dr. May also provided information and updates on a number of more recent efforts and 

initiatives focused on public safety communications, precision medicine and forensic science.

Dr. May concluded his presentation with a summary of the types of external review of the NIST 

organization, including the VCAT, the National Research Council (NRC) Board on Assessment and the 

International Peer Review of NIST Measurement Services. He suggested a process of having the VCAT 

review the findings and recommendations of the groups during the October 2016 meeting and then every 

4 years thereafter.

Discussion: The group discussed the following topics:

 NIST employee survey results and the need to segment the data for better understanding of the 

employee feedback

 NIST efforts around an insider risk program 

 NIST’s patent and IP activities

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

Safety Update – Richard Kayser, Chief Safety Officer

Presentation Summary: Dr. Kayser shared the recent safety statistics showing eighteen OSHA 

recordables, three more than last year along with eleven DART cases, also three more than last year. He 

provided a summary of the types of incidents with the majority falling into the slips, trips and fall category. 

Dr. Kayser continued his conversation about elements of the actions stemming from the safety climate 

survey, specifically the areas of unsafe conditions and practices and improving safety training. He shared 

specific actions in the areas of focused communication and dissemination of information and guidance to 

help staff understand the importance and their individual roles identifying and reporting unsafe conditions. 

In the area of safety training, NIST has focused on improving the quality and the delivery options of safety 

training materials. NIST has worked to improve staff engagement in safety at every level and has been 

working throughout the organization on the design, implementation and delivery of NIST’s safety 

program.

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

NIST PARTNERSHIPS

Follow-up on Bio and IT Research Portfolios

Presentation Summary: Dr. Locascio and Mr. St. Pierre provided follow-up to questions stemming from 

the June 2015 VCAT session focused on NIST’s activities in these research areas. Dr. Locascio provided 

information on the targeted research efforts within bioscience today and identified the following areas for 

increased focused for the future: precision medicine, microbial measurements, quantitative tools for 
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characterization of complex biologics, and engineering biology. She highlighted the specific NIST 

partnerships supporting NIST’s biosciences program. She also shared information on efforts to recruit 

new staff in these areas including the NRC post-doc program and relationships with partner 

organizations.

Mr. St. Pierre outlined how the research investments in IT are expected to shift over time into the areas of 

advanced networking and communications, big data, cyber-physical system, cybersecurity/cryptography, 

measurement science collaborations and quantum. He shared information on partnerships supporting a 

number of these priority areas including the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. In the area of 

staffing, Mr. St. Pierre highlighted the benefit the increased focus NIST has in the area of cybersecurity, 

including the engagement around the Cybersecurity Framework that has resulted in positive messaging 

and interest from individuals considering NIST as a workplace. 

For more information, see the following presentations: Dr. Locascio and Mr. St. Pierre.

Evolution of NIST Partnerships – Jason Boehm, Director, Program Coordination Office

Presentation Summary: Dr. Boehm highlighted the evolution of NIST’s partnerships, noting a significant 

increase in formal partnerships over the past 10 years. NIST’s partnerships range from formal joint 

institutes to engagements with specific communities on standards issues in areas such as cybersecurity, 

forensics, and advanced materials. The expansion in partnerships has increased NIST’s access to 

expertise and allowed entry into technical areas where there is significant growth potential and offers 

NIST a pipeline for a future skilled workforce. The partnerships provides flexibility to work with academia 

and industry in different ways and allows NIST to address emerging areas and mission mandates.

Dr. Boehm outlined some of the challenges involved in the expanded partnerships, including the time to 

formalize the arrangements, need for special authorities in some cases, and IP issues. There is also a 

concern about the loss of connection to the NIST culture at some of the offsite facilities. Dr. Boehm 

concluded his presentation discussing the need for balance between internal programs here at NIST, the

research laboratories, and NIST’s offsite engagements and whether or not these relationships will have a 

long-term impact on what is critical to the NIST mission. The VCAT was asked to consider this through 

the remainder of the meeting with a focus on several specific questions: 

 From your perspective, are these partnerships an effective means for engaging and collaborating 

with industry and/or academia to address NIST’s strategic priorities?

 With flat R&D budgets on the horizon what is the appropriate balance of direct investment in NIST 

core research programs versus investment in partnerships to most effectively complement NIST 

research capabilities?

 Given NIST’s research portfolio and current suite of partnership models, are there other 

flexibilities and tools we should consider to address priority research areas and retain technical 

expertise to support the NIST mission?

Discussion: 

 How NIST decides when to create a new partnership

 NIST’s investments in each of the partnerships

For more information, see Dr. Boehm’s presentation.
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Partnership Model: Joint Initiative for Metrology in Biology (JIMB) – Marc Salit, Leader, GenomeScale Measurements Group, MML, Drew Endy, Associate Professor of Bioengineering, Stanford

University

Dr. Salit highlighted an emerging partnership with Stanford focused on developing the metrology tools 

needed to measure biological materials. Dr Endy highlighted the opportunities and challenges of when 

metrology comes into biology as a material and how if you can realize coordination of measurement and

reuse of materials, industry can begin to make decisions on whether to centralize manufacturing or 

support distributive manufacturing. This is an example of how the tools of metrology will have a significant 

economic impact. The presenters shared information on recent workshops and engagements 

demonstrating interest in building an ecosystem of companies or commercial activities that allows for 

reuse of materials that allows for tool makers to become specialized and companies to do design and 

engineering of biological manufacturing platforms. 

Information about the staff working on the partnership, from students to faculty to NIST staff were shared 

and the benefits of having the partnership in close proximity to both the university and industry were 

highlighted. With the partnership coming up on a 1-year anniversary, the presenters shared challenges 

for the future, including dedicated space and administrative burden with navigating both university and 

federal systems.

For more information, see the presentation.

Discussion:

 IP sharing and policies

 Future needs for the partnership, including dedicated space, increased investment

 Administrative and research challenges of having staff in both Gaithersburg and Stanford

Partnership Model: Centers of Excellence – Jason Boehm, Director, Program Coordination Office 

Presentation Summary: Dr. Boehm shared information on NIST’s Center of Excellences (COEs), a new 

program focused on expanding NIST’s impact and mission delivery by enabling NIST to partner with 

foremost experts in critical technical areas. Through the COEs, NIST is able to expand collaborations 

with leading research institutions in emerging technology areas to help NIST meet mission needs in new 

or expanding areas of strategic focus; enhance technical innovation through early alignment of 

measurement science with emerging fields of research; provide new opportunities for training of students 

and postdocs in measurement science; and provide greater opportunities for NIST to engage with 

entrepreneurs and industry.

NIST has designed the program to be flexible. NIST received funding for the program in 2013 and 

currently has about $15M invested across three centers. These include: the Center for Hierarchical 

Materials and Design (CHiMaD), the Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning, and the 

Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence. 

The COEs are funded for an initial period of up to 5 years with the option to renew based on review and 

decisions by NIST and then they can be extended for an additional 5 years. After a 10 year period, if 

NIST wants to continue a Center focused on one of these areas, NIST would recompete the center so it 

may not go to the same party. Initial plans called for a portfolio of about 5 centers in operation at any one 

time. If new funding for COEs is received, NIST would consider areas critical to the NIST mission such as 
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complex systems, measurement and control, biological systems and an advanced photonic and optical 

measurements. 

Dr. Boehm highlighted current work on developing a framework for evaluating the COEs. Elements of the 

framework include internal reviews, best practice sharing and a review panel of external experts. Dr. 

Boehm indicated the framework would be shared with the VCAT for their review and comment. 

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

Partnership Model: Center for Hierarchical Materials Design (ChiMad) – Eric Lin, Chief, Materials 

Science and Engineering Division, MML and Peter Voorhees, Co-Director, CHiMad

Presentation Summary: 

Dr. Lin and Dr. Voorhees discussed the NIST COE focused on advanced materials, the Center for 

Hierarchical Materials Design, CHIMAD. It is a group of universities, the University of Chicago and 

Northwestern University, Fayetteville State University along with the Argonne National Laboratory, 

QuesTek Innovations, and ASM International. The COE is funded at $5M per year over a 5-year period. 

This funding is matched by the universities at the level of 20%. 

The overall shared vision for this Center is aligned with the materials genome initiative (MGI) and the

center is really focused on trying to realize the full impact of the MGI and accelerate materials discovery 

and development and reduce the time for when a new material is deployed into manufacturing. This 

shared vision will demonstrate the power and potential of bringing together data science, computational 

approaches and state of the art experiments to more effectively design these materials. The leadership of 

the Center is a close working partnership between all the organizations in CHIMAD and at NIST. The 

focus of CHiMad is to:

 Leverage significant strengths and a long history of materials design and collaborative research

 Identify thrust areas (use-cases) that focus on particular materials of industrial and scientific 

importance involve industrial collaborators, and transfer the design methodology to industry and 

other stakeholders

 Develop community standard codes for both hard and soft materials design materials databases 

that are motivated by topics of the use groups experimental methods for rapid assessment of 

materials properties

 Convene workshops and outreach activities on issues that are central to the implementation of 

the Materials Genome Initiative

Dr. Voorhees provided examples of the specific use cases, including precipitation-strengthened alloys, insitu silicon-composite materials, and organic polymer solar cells among others. Information on staff 

resources, engagements and overall governance of the partnership was also provided. 

Discussion: 

 Industry connection into the Center

 Measures of success 

For more information, see presentation materials.
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Partnership Model: NIST Labs working with the National Network of Manufacturing Institutes –

Richard Cavanagh, Acting Associate Director for Laboratory Programs (ADLP)

Presentation Summary: Dr. Cavanagh discussed NIST’s laboratory connections with the National 

Network of Manufacturing Institutes (NNMI) highlighting specific interactions and engagements with the 

individual institutes. These engagements are based on traditional ways that the labs work with industry 

and other federal agency partners to understand their measurement needs. He provided specific 

information on several of the interactions with the various NNMIs. With America Makes, NIST invested 

$5M in a measurement science grant. NIST has a seat on the technical advisory board and staff serve

on a number of the advisory groups and subgroups. NIST researchers collaborate with America Makes 

on in-situ process monitoring, non-destructive evaluation, and layer-wise quality certification. NIST also 

convened a workshop on measurement science for additive manufacturing documenting industry needs 

and priorities to use as a starting point for the National Additive Manufacturing Roadmap and the first 

America Makes set of projects. America Makes also engaged NIST for development of a standards 

strategy to carry forward the technical results from America Makes funded projects into ASTM F42 and 

ISO/TC 261 standards to ensure dissemination and transition to industry. 

NIST has similar engagements with the other NNMIs, serving on review and oversight panels, providing 

technical expertise and working in partnership to develop tools and measurements in the specific areas of 

focus. Dr. Cavanagh indicated that these interactions and engagements are in direct alignment with 

NIST’s existing priorities. 

Discussion: 

 Reporting structure for individuals participating in NNMI activities.

 Level of interactions in the individual NIST laboratory Operating Units.

 Focus of the engagements on specific technology readiness levels of industry.

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

Partnership Models: JILA and Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) – James Olthoff, Director, Physical 

Measurement Laboratory (PML)

Presentation Summary: The original purpose of JILA dates back to the 1950s, when the idea of 

laboratory astrophysics was gaining scientific relevance because of the space program. An institute 

bolstering NIST activities in this area, leveraged with expertise at universities was formed with the 

University of Colorado in 1962. Today there are 25 JILA fellows total in the institute, 11 of them are from 

NIST and 14 are from CU. All of the NIST JILA fellows hold adjunct faculty appointments at the university. 

In total there are about 250 people including students, guest researchers, and staff working at JILA. JILA 

has expanded significantly since then in terms of the technological areas that it addresses. Lasers and 

measurement tools, chemical kinetics, new frequency standards, the world's best atomic clock is there. 

Measurement science on the nanoscience, quantitative generic gases, and other things like ultrafast 

science and biophysics are on the research agenda. One of the biggest impacts is the highly-trained 

innovators, the environment and the extraordinary fellows that JILA produces, and even more 

extraordinary batch of trained scientist. Over 400 individuals have worked at JILA in some capacity or 

another and then taken positions of some form or another within NIST, so the amount of scientific 

expertise that has found its way from JILA into NIST has been extraordinary.
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Dr. Olthoff also discussed NIST’s role in the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a collaboration with the 

University of Maryland located on the University’s campus. It was established in 2006 and currently there 

are 31 JQI fellows between NIST and Maryland and about a total of 180 individuals working at JQI and it 

is still growing. JQI’s focus is on serving as a world-class research institute conducting fundamental 

investigations of coherent quantum phenomena with a secondary objective to maintain and advance the 

nation's leading role in high technology through this collaboration. There are many opportunities in this 

technology space as we are just beginning to see the first commercialization of these technologies. Dr. 

Olthoff shared several technical accomplishments and highlighted the publication and citation rate of the 

publications associated with research at JQI. 

He briefly mentioned the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science established last 

year. A partnership between NIST’s Physical Measurement Laboratory and Information Technology 

Laboratory, and the University of Maryland. It is largely an extension of JQI and the formation of this 

institution has allowed the University to hire world class staff that they would not have been able to attract 

otherwise. The mere combination of Maryland and NIST has made it a very attractive place to work and 

made it one of the leading centers, probably one of the two leading centers in the world, on this topic.

Dr. Olthoff highlighted lessons learned from across all three partnerships with a focus on the importance 

of close proximity to NIST as a key to success. Challenges include intellectual property and 

cultural/operational differences that must be sorted out. NIST has found these partnerships to be hugely 

successful and envisions the will last well into the future.

Discussion: 

 The impact of JILA on the broader technical area

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

Administrative Business

Roberto Padovani mentioned upcoming elections for the VCAT Chair and Vice Chair position will be held 

at the February 2016 meeting. He shared the current terms of VCAT members and asked for 

nominations to serve in these positions. A formal request for nominations will be sent out by the VCAT 

Executive Secretary in the coming weeks. Darlene Solomon was officially thanked for her service to the 

VCAT and to NIST. 

There were no public comments offered.

The VCAT offered final comments and observations and discussed potential topics for future meetings. 

Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 3:53 p.m. 

I hereby certify that to the best of my knowledge, the forgoing minutes are accurate and complete.
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Karen Lellock, Executive Director, NIST Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology

Dr. Roberto Padovani, Chair, NIST Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology