Research NewsletterIssue: ORN-2023-50

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Summer Research Team (SRT) Program For Minority Serving Institutions

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Summer Research Team (SRT) Program for Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) is now accepting applications from faculty at Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) interested in participating in a summer research team experience. Selected Faculty will be invited to submit a Team Application including a Research Project Proposal developed in collaboration with a DHS Center researcher and applications from one or two qualified students.

Applications are accepted at the following: https://bit.ly/SRT2024

The program seeks to increase and enhance the scientific leadership at MSIs in research areas that support the mission and goals of DHS. This program provides faculty and student research teams with the opportunity to conduct research at the university-based DHS Centers of Excellence (DHS Centers). At the end of the ten-week appointment, faculty collaborate with center to apply for up to $100,000 in follow-on funding to continue research during the 2024-2025 academic year at the faculty’s home academic institution!

Participant Benefits:

• Stipends starting at $2,000 per week for faculty, $750 per week for undergraduates and $950 per week for graduate students during the 10-week research experience period
• Housing Allowance $400 per week
• Limited Travel Reimbursement
• Follow-on funding of up to $100,000 to continue research during the 2024-2025 academic year

For detailed program information and application resources please visit: https://orise.orau.gov/dhseducation/srt/default.html.

NSF: Improving Undergraduate STEM Education - Adaptation, Implementation, and Dissemination (IUSE-AID); Formal Methods in the Field (FMitF); National Discovery Cloud for Climate Opportunities; Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI-2024/25)

NIH: Undergraduate Research Education Program (UP) to Enhance Diversity in the Environmental Health Sciences (R25); BRAIN Initiative: Brain-Behavior Quantification and Synchronization – Transformative and Integrative Models of Behavior at the Organismal Level (R34)

Department of Defense/US Army/DARPA/ONR: Minerva Research Initiative - University Research; DEVCOM ARL HBCU/MI Research Partnerships; Young Faculty Award (YFA) 2024; The Department of Defense (DOD) Fiscal Year 2025 Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP)

Department of Energy: Bioimaging Research Approaches for the Bioeconomy & the Environment; High-Energy-Density Laboratory Plasma Science

NASA: ROSES 2023: A.6 Carbon Monitoring System; ROSES 2023: A.58 Advanced Information Systems Technology; MUREP Institutional Research Opportunity (MIRO); ROSES 2023: F.5 Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology

OMB adds metrics to digital experience oversight: The Office of Management and Budget is piloting new digital experience indicators based on recently released guidance for the 21st Century IDEA Act. In September, the Office of Management and Budget released long-awaited 21st Century IDEA Act guidance on digital experience with requirements around accessibility, branding content and more. Now, it’s piloting new analytics it says will help it measure and advance progress across agencies over time.  The forthcoming “digital experience indicators” will be based on that digital experience guidance and its roughly 100 actions and requirements for agencies, he said.  So far, around 30 indicators can be automatically scanned already, and of those, the office has already begun piloting 20 automated indicators on all websites, digital services and other public-facing digital products, Lewandoski said. OMB is looking to measure things like whether agencies are using the U.S. Web Design System as required, and meeting accessibility requirements.  Eventually, the indicators will be made public, he said, likely late next year. First, agencies have to work through other requirements including creating inventories of their website and digital services, he said. Federal CIO Clare Martorana told Nextgov/FCW on the sidelines of the event that “taking [the analytics] in and working with the agencies will allow us then to fine-tune the performance and optimize the performance.” The analytics are meant to serve an oversight function, she said, as opposed to check-the-box style compliance activity. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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DOD offices see post-quantum cryptography as 'mission critical': Officials at the Department of Defense shed light on their agency’s plans to modernize their encryption infrastructure ahead of the anticipated advent of a fault-tolerant quantum computer, discussing familiar policy goals like private sector collaboration and supporting warfighter operations moving into 2024. Wanda Jones-Heath, the principal cyber advisor at the U.S. Air Force ​​said that updating the department’s encryption from classical cryptographic schemes to a network armed with post-quantum cryptographic standards. She said that this migration is “mission imperative” for the Air Force to ensure its cybersecurity defenses can handle emerging threats. “If we had not started this two years ago, we would be even further behind,” she said in remarks on a panel on Tuesday hosted by General Dynamics Information Technology. “Now we are again [in] a sense of urgency...this is a national security issue.” Continued department-wide investments in transitioning both the hardware and software for classical computing will be critical to successfully migrate in the months and years ahead. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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House committee unanimously approves quantum reauthorization bill: A major piece of legislation dedicated to growing the U.S.’s domestic quantum sciences and technology industry passed a House of Representatives committee vote, with the inclusion of 19 new amendments.  The House Science, Space and Technology Committee held a final markup hearing for the legislation on Wednesday, which saw the National Quantum Initiative Act reauthorization pass unanimously out of the committee and advance towards the House floor. The legislation "will harness the accomplishments of the Committee’s 2018 National Quantum Initiative Act to conduct breakthrough research, drive new quantum applications, bolster industry partnerships and invigorate the quantum ecosystem,” said committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla. “As China and Russia are actively making notable investments in quantum systems, we must maintain our momentum to secure our leadership position in this revolutionary field, and this bill does just that.” Industry experts voiced support for the bill’s passage. Allison Schwartz, the vice president of Global Government Relations & Public Affairs for D-Wave, told Nextgov/FCW that some of the most important provisions in the reauthorization will support advancing near-term quantum technologies, namely annealers and hybrid computing models. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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NIST is prioritizing creating a dictionary of AI development: Leadership at the National Institute of Standards and Technology reiterated the need for a common lexicon of terms relevant to artificial intelligence systems and machine learning models as the technologies continue to advance and be used globally. Speaking during an Athens Roundtable event on Friday, NIST’s associate director for emerging technologies at the Information Technology Laboratory Elham Tabassi discussed both the need for and challenges of gathering a broad, diverse community response to standardizing technical language. Officials including Tabassi have been working on developing federal policy that looks to measure and account for a broad range of societal risks posed by emerging technologies like AI. Part of that work is developing standards and metrics for risks like bias, discrimination and other hazards. She noted that marrying recommendations from scientific, quantitative professionals with those that have more social sciences backgrounds is challenging –– but necessary –– to do for democratically-developed standards for AI. More information is posted on the NextGov website.