UNIVERSITIES AND RED TAPE: For the past year, a task force tapped by four senators, including Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) has been looking into government regulations affecting higher education. Co-chairs William Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, and Nicholas Zeppos, chancellor of Vanderbilt, are due to present their report at a hearing Tuesday. They were asked to quantify the extent of the regs and recommend ways to reduce the burden.

BUDGET HEARINGS OPEN: Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will defend his spending request Wednesday before the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee (webcast). Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell will appear before an  Energy and Commerce subcommittee, which appears mainly  interested in Obamacare, not the National Institutes of Health. The following day, the House Science research subcommittee will hear from National Science Foundation Director France Córdova, Science Board Chairman Daniel Arvizu, and Willie May, acting director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

WATCHDOGS: Inspectors general of NASA and the Departments of Commerce (of which NIST is a part) and Justice testify Wednesday before the Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science subcommittee.

DRINKING WATER SYSTEMS in rural and small communities is the topic of a hearing Friday before an Energy and Commerce subcommittee.

APPEAL FOR AN END TO SEQUESTRATION: A coalition of 2,100 groups seeking to protect the government's non-defense discretionary budget from further cuts has sent a letter to Congress urging that sequestration be replaced by "a balanced approach to deficit reduction." The short letter, followed by 50 pages of signers.

GRADUATE DEGREES AND GENDER

The proportion of men and women seeking graduate degrees has fluctuated in recent decades. But for engineers who earned undergraduate degrees in 2000, roughly the same proportion of men and women earned Ph.Ds by 2010.  Source:  Frontiers in Psychology, "The bachelor's to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men: a 30-year analysis." 

         1971                                                 2000      1971                                               2000

Year of receiving bachelor's degree

 

ADVANCED TRAINING + EXPERIENCE = $$

A graduate degree alone counts for far less than on-the-job experience in engineering. But the two together spell success. Source: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, "From Hard Times to Better Times: College Majors, Unemployment, and Earnings."

PICK UP THE PACE: Defense Secretary Ashton Carter sounds intent on getting new technologies to the battlefield faster. At his confirmation hearing early this month, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee it is "very important not just for cost  control, but in order to remain the best military in the world that we turn the technological corner more quickly." He spoke in response to queries from Angus King, independent from Maine, who cited estimates that development of military aircraft has gone from 6 years in 1975 to 23 years now.  Carter's comments help explain the administration's cuts to basic research in favor of applied in its 2016 budget.

NEW AWARDS FOR 12 MATERIALS RESEARCH CENTERS: The centers, the newest of which is led by Columbia, will help "next-generation quantum computing, electronics and photonics and bio- and soft-materials," according to the National Science Foundation. Eleven existing centers "in most cases . . . will take on new materials research and focus on education." Read more. See FAQs on Materials Innovation Platforms. and NSF's Professional Formation of Engineers: Research Initiation in Engineering Formation (PFE: RIEF) program. The latter aims to "create long-term partnerships between engineers and researchers in the social and learning sciences and related disciplines."

NSF has updated its report for 2015 on women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in science and engineering.

$10 MILLION IN NEW BIO-ENERGY GRANTS: North Carolina State, Ohio State, University of California, Riverside, and Michigan Tech are among winners of the Department of Energy push to "to develop renewable and cost-competitive biofuels from non-food biomass feedstocks by reducing the risk associated with potentially breakthrough approaches and technologies." Read more.

YOU NEED TO GET OUT MORE: A National Academies assessment of the Army Research Laboratory says curtailment of ARL staff participation in conferences and societies "will negatively impact both collaborative programmatic efforts and maintenance of an edge in ARL’s areas of expertise. This has already affected staff morale, produced opportunity costs, and will seriously impact staff retention and hiring in the future." An inward turn will lead to "reinvention of wheels." The report also encourages formation of small interdisciplinary teams focused on addressing or defining high-value research challenges.

U 2 CAN WIN 25K: The March 2 deadline is fast approaching for the National Academy of Engineering video contest. Participants  "review NAE’s 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering, then create and submit a 1 to 2 minute video that shows how achieving one or more of the NAE Grand Challenges for Engineering will lead to a more sustainable, healthy, secure, and/or joyous world!."

“Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology” - conference July 7
to 10, 2015 at Surrey University, U.K., sponsored by International Society for Industrial Ecology. More information at http://www.is4ie.org/ 

YEAR OF ACTION ON DIVERSITY: Read the latest issue of the ASEE Diversity Committee's semi-annual newsletter, including its call for nominations for Best Diversity Paper.