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Rita Colwell Resigns as Director of the National Science Foundation
Dr. Rita Colwell has resigned as Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), effective February 21. Upon her retirement from NSF, Colwell will become Chairman of Canon U.S. Life Sciences, Inc., a newly-created Washington-based subsidiary of Canon U.S.A. whose goal is to identify and develop life-science solutions with potential applications in diagnostics and medical instrumentation. She will also serve as Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, and on the faculty of The John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. There she will help develop a new international center for the study of infectious diseases, water, and health.
Colwell is the third longest-serving Director in NSF’s 54 year history. She has been director of NSF since 1998, when she was appointed by President Clinton. Her six year term would have expired in August. During her tenure at NSF, Colwell oversaw a major increase in the Foundation’s support of environmental research through such initiatives as the interdisciplinary Biocomplexity in the Environment Priority Area.
"I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to lead NSF through two Administrations and major transformational changes," Colwell said in a press release Wednesday. "During the past five and a half years, our budget has increased by 68 percent, our merit review system has been recognized throughout government as the gold standard for responsible use of public funds, and our programs have helped U.S. science and engineering evolve into the flexible, robust and diverse endeavors that they must become to keep America preeminent at the frontier of research and education."
Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., who currently serves as Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), will become interim Director. Bement has indicated that he will remain accountable to Congress and Administration for NIST during this time, and that he will resume his duties as full time director of NIST once a new NSF director is appointed.
Bement has served on the National Science Board, which is the governing board of the NSF. Before becoming Director of NIST in 2001, Bement was Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Purdue University. Prior to that, he held a variety of positions in academia, industry and government, including senior positions with the Department of Defense.
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