NSF FEATURES cont.
 

        When Lenore Mullin brought a $312,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) Presidential Faculty Fellow (PFF) award with her from the University of Missouri-Rolla to the University at Albany Department of Computer Science in 1995, she had a plan.
    “I want to help the University attain Carnegie Research University I status,” Mullin says.  “I am delighted that our administration has decided to make Research I status its goal, is making the necessary investments, and has a plan on how to grow to get us there.”
     Mullin takes time from the interview to speak with an undergraduate who thinks she might be interested in computer science, but doesn’t know where to begin.  Mentoring students is an important part of Mullin’s life - as is serving on NSF panels that present graduate fellowships.
     “At the last one I attended, we gave out 15 NSF graduate fellowships in the sciences to women.  I don’t think I’ll ever forget that,” she says.
    Mullin’s daughter Lisa played varsity basketball at UAlbany and earned a bachelor’s degree in political science; son Craig earned a bachelor’s in management information science - so joining the faculty here actually was a return to home and family.  Mullin is delighted that she and the Center for Computational Science that she directs are integral to the University’s plans for attaining Carnegie Research I status.
    “We have to be Research I to draw the best students.  We’re identifying faculty, working on collaborative proposals with industry and other institutions, and investing in research that truly crosses interdisciplinary lines,” she adds.
     “My area of research (computer languages and their ability to interact across disciplines) is just beginning a period of phenomenal growth,” she says.  Computer programs and languages, she jokes, “are to computer science what an electrician is to physics.”
    Her research “deals with the numerical aspects of what scientists want to do - computational models, simulations, more reliable core algorithms.  It’s about mathematics and how mathematics intertwines in all disciplines, various architectures and methodology,” she says. “How do you put all these together in networks, how do architectures drive systems, how do computer languages interface with people?”
    Mullin believes there is plenty of funding available for her faculty colleagues to seek from agencies such as the NSF, the Department of Defense (DOD) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). 
    “Our faculty are as good as or better than any university’s,” she says.  “What we need is to continue working with industry, in centers such as (former NSF Presidential Young Investigator) Alain Kaloyeros's Center for Advanced Thin Film Technology, and start obtaining industry-endowed chairs in computer sciences and the related laboratory sciences.” 
    And more sponsored funding will encourage more students, especially undergraduates, to become involved in research.  “When your research becomes integral to the field, students want to work with you.  There is a tiering of what we value, and winning an NSF award is the crème de la crème of scholarship, one of the best awards you can get, because it comes with fewer strings attached.”
    Being selected as a Presidential Faculty Fellow to study Intermediate Languages for Enhanced Parallel Performance was even better, she says, because, “An NSF early career award says, ‘we believe that this person’s research is already so noteworthy that that the government is going to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in it.’”

       Biochemist Caro-Beth (Beth) Stewart
 says her $524,000 Presidential Faculty Fellow award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1994 helped put her on the map in the field of molecular evolution.
    The grant, to study the molecular basis for adaptive evolution of higher organisms such as the primates, “catapulted me to a place where people saw me as a leader in the field, and it helped me get my next grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH),” says Stewart.  “It literally kept my research program alive, and gave me an intellectual freedom that goes beyond what you normally can get from NIH grants.”
    Stewart, an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, is one of three Albany faculty members to have won the NSF Presidential Faculty Fellow (PFF) award or its predecessor, the Presidential Young Investigator (PYI) award.
    Lenore Mullin of the Department of Computer Science brought her $312,000 PFF to study “Intermediate Languages for Enhanced Parallel Performance” with her from the University of Missouri-Rolla when she joined the Albany faculty in 1995.
    And physicist Alain Kaloyeros used his 1991 $312,000 PYI award to establish one of the most successful partnerships of government, industry and academe in New York, the Center for Advanced Thin Film Technology and the National Semiconductor Association Focus Center-New York at the Center for Environmental Sciences and Technology Management (CESTM). (See p. 2)
     Stewart - whose original research program focused on adaptive evolution of digestive enzymes in foregut-fermenting mammals - has expanded and changed research focus to study the evolutionary history and adaptation of AIDS-related proteins in the Old World monkeys.  Her lab also has started research on adaptive evolution of certain genes that are expressed only in sperm cells.
     “The research we are doing now wouldn’t have been possible without the NSF award. The NSF is one of the few places that only want scientists to be scientists,” Stewart says.
    Robert Crangle, a Kansas-based consultant, is an expert on the NSF and has conducted in-service training for new NSF employees for many years.  He notes that the NSF - an independent federal agency - has been able to grow and prosper for 50 years without becoming a “political football” because of its reputation for funding good science for science’s sake.
    “Congress has a high degree of trust in NSF programs,” Crangle says.  “Everyone tries to protect its role in funding needed research, and the current director (Rita Colwell) is able to continue the well-established bipartisan push for more resources by clarifying the agency mission into furnishing the ‘people, ideas and tools’ needed to advance the nation’s scientific enterprise.”
    Serving on NSF peer review panels also has enabled Stewart to experience the excitement of seeing what cutting-edge research other scientists in her field are conducting.  She strongly urges more faculty colleagues to submit proposals to the NSF, primarily because, “Most people who are active researchers in the biological sciences are funded either by the NSF or NIH.  And the students are bound to benefit from being able to participate in research that has been nationally recognized and funded.”
    Stewart says her undergraduate students sometimes “are surprised to find out how much outstanding research is being conducted on this campus.”  Getting involved in NSF- and/or NIH-funded research “helps them learn that science is a process,” she says.
    Crangle notes that just as it is too early to see how the NSF funding a high school science research curriculum will benefit society at large, it will be decades before we can assess the success of NSF programs like PFF, PYI and their current incarnation, the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).
     However, he adds, “I have yet to hear any story about an awardee whose career was not enhanced immediately.  A career boost in a crowded field should give a person a lifetime edge.”

    Making information technology work for government - this is what the Center for Technology in Government (CTG) does every day.

As a result:

• CTG helped the state Department of Motor Vehicles cut the vehicle title issuance process from 100 days to 30 - at a savings of $3 million. 
• The center has shown the Governor’s Office of Regulatory Reform how voice-response technology can help small business entrepreneurs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• In the process of completing its projects, CTG has forged strong partnerships with 50 corporations. From 1993-98, private in-kind resources totaled $3.5 million.
• The center has recruited UAlbany faculty and students from many disciplines, including computer science, public administration and information science to bring their expertise to CTG projects.

    In short, the work of CTG takes intensive research, analysis, and discovery to create innovative solutions to government information problems.
    Thanks to the National Science Foundation’s appreciation for the power of multiple perspectives, the center has been able to conduct innovative work that benefits government and its citizens.
    “The National Science Foundation’s willingness to fund multidisciplinary investigations is vital to the work we do at CTG,” said Director Sharon S. Dawes. “Our interest is in understanding the intricacies of technology development and use in complex organizations. No single kind of research can do this. It requires studying the many facets of government through a variety of lenses.”
    Since 1997, the NSF has awarded CTG $1.4 million for four multidisciplinary projects aimed at helping government make better use of information and technology. 
    First, the Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) integrates various IT and computer science disciplines to help the U.S. stay on the leading edge of technology. As part of the Education, Outreach, and Training Team, CTG has been helping develop innovative applications of technologies designed to solve the practical problems of federal, state, and local governments. The center is the lead government partner in this NSF effort to build a national technology infrastructure for the 21st century.
    “CTG’s work in the PACI program is helping to build more pragmatic technology tools that will benefit government, as well as business, industry, research, and education,” Dawes said. “These innovative tools will be used by government agencies and policy makers to solve the pressing societal problems, like environmental quality and economic forecasting, that demand intensive data analysis.”
    In the second project, the center has been tapped by NSF to help define a new national research program on digital go- vernment. As part of this project, CTG conducted a multidisciplinary workshop in the fall of 1998. Participants devised recommendations that would help government create programs, like the Internal Revenue Service’s e-file and Telefile programs, that use technology to enhance customer service and program delivery. Those recommendations were detailed in a national report, Some Assembly Required: Building a Digital Government for the 21st Century, produced by CTG.
    CTG’s third and most intensive project, which was awarded a three-year NSF grant in September 1999, involves investigation into the complex world of public sector knowledge networks. CTG is studying seven initiatives led by New York state and local agencies that depend on sharing knowledge and information across multiple organizations.
    The fourth, and most recent, award is a Digital Government planning grant that will support UAlbany’s participation in a multi-national investigation into new models of collaboration for delivering services to citizens and businesses.  CEFRIO, a Quebec research center devoted to understanding the use of information and communication technologies in public and private organizations, is a key partner. CTG will be working with CEFRIO researchers as well as faculty at the University of Quebec at Montreal and researchers from several selected U.S. institutions.
    “It is only through intensive work with partners from all levels of the government, corporate, and academic sectors that we can unlock the puzzle of effective and innovative program management and service delivery in the public sector,” Dawes said. “The strong and continued support of NSF gives us the key.”