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News and updates

AAU and the Department of Energy Seek ARPA-E Nominations

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The Association of American Universities (AAU) is asking its member campuses to recommend individuals to serve as temporary personnel to help organize the new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).  The Department of Energy (DoE) is looking for individuals with the knowledge and expertise to help it organize the new agency.  These individuals would serve as temporary program managers and provide additional program support (for both 6-to-12-month and three-year terms of service).  AAU has already collected and forwarded to DoE several resumes from its member campuses, but would appreciate receiving additional nominations.

Resumes and questions can be sent to Jonathan Nurse, UW Assistant Director of Federal Relations, who will forward UW recommendations to AAU as a set.

To establish ARPA-E, Congress provided DoE with $400 million in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and $15 million in the FY09 omnibus appropriations bill.  ARPA-E was originally authorized in the America COMPETES Act (P.L. 110-69) in 2007, but it received no funding in FY07 or FY08.  

The Department of Energy hopes to staff the agency quickly with highly qualified faculty members and others who can help the agency become established and begin to fund research proposals.  Recovery Act funds must be obligated within the next two years.

UW and National Education Associations Seek Pell Grant Entitlement

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As the 111th Congress returns to regular session this week, the University of Washington and several higher education associations have sent letters to lawmakers in a show of support for the President’s proposal to make the Pell Grant program an entitlement. Such a move would provide annual increases equivalent to inflation (plus an additional 1%), eliminating the need for an annual debate over the program’s funding. UW’s letter was distributed to the entire Washington congressional delegation. A joint letter — from the Association of American Universities, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, American Association of State Colleges and Universitiesm, American Council on Education, and American Association of Community Colleges — was distributed to each member of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Pell Grant entitlement proposal will be debated as part of the annual appropriations process over the course of the spring, summer and early fall.

The Pell Grant entitlement would be largely paid for by savings realized from elimination of the Federal Family Education Loan Program, which is administered by financial institutions, and transition to the direct lending program for all schools. The University of Washington is already a direct lending school.

NIH Short-Term Faculty Recruitment Program Deadline Approaching

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The deadline for submitting letters of intent to participate in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) short-term faculty recruitment program is April 29, 2009. Final applications are due one month later, on May 29. 

NIH plans to obligate up to $100 million in Economic Recovery Act funds for the program by September 30, 2010, contingent on its receiving a sufficient number of “scientifically meritorious applications.”

The program, which was created to address the faculty recruitment crunch caused by the economic recession, is focused on recruiting young faculty members in biomedical research fields.  Awards to institutions will provide “funding to hire, provide appropriate start-up packages, and develop pilot research projects for newly independent investigators.”

RFA-OD-09-005

President Obama Nominates Director of DoE Office of Science

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President Obama has nominated Princeton University physicist William F. Brinkman to head the $5 billion Department of Energy Office of Science.

William F. Brinkman is currently a Senior Research Physicist in the Physics Department at Princeton University.  Prior to working for Princeton, he was Vice President (now retired) of Research from Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, New Jersey, where he was responsibile for the direction of all research to enable the advancement of the technology underlying Lucent Technologies’ products. Previous to this position he was Physical Sciences Research Vice President and Vice President of Research at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM. William received his BS and Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Missouri in 1960 and 1965, respectively. He joined Bell Laboratories in 1966 after spending one year as an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford University. In 1972, he became Head of the Infrared Physics and Electronics Research Department, and in 1974 became the Director of the Chemical Physics Research Laboratory. He held the position of Director of the Physical Research Laboratory from 1981 until moving to Sandia in 1984. He returned to Bell Laboratories in 1987 to become Executive Director of the Physics Research Division. In 1993, he became Physical Sciences Research Vice President, and in January 2000 became Vice President, Research. William is a member of the American Philosophical Society, National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has served on a number of national committees, including chairmanship of the National Academy of Sciences Physics Survey and their Solid-State Sciences Committee.

NIH Issues RFA for $200 Million in Recovery Act Funding

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The National Institutes of Health seeks applicants for $200 million in grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for large-scale research projects that are likely to spur growth and investment in biomedical research, public health and health care delivery. Funding priorities include research on information technology that lets physicians share radiological images across health care organizations to reduce health care costs and improve decision-making. Applications are due by May 27.

NIH Request for Applications (RFA-OD-09-004)