Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Context: In my role as division director of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) at NSF, I’m sending out a short message to the IIS mailing list on the Second Tuesday Every Month (STEM). This is the installment for May 2024.
Hi all,
It’s absolutely critical that government decision-makers are informed by experts. But it’s equally important that individuals not have undue influence on the decisions ultimately made and that processes are open. To try to balance these conflicting needs, mechanisms for creating expert committees were standardized across executive branch agencies in 1972, through the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). (See https://www.nsf.gov/od/ogc/faca.jsp . Wikipedia also has a page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Advisory_Committee_Act . Neither of these sources are all that illuminating, though.)
Naturally, the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate has an advisory committee, and that committee falls under the jurisdiction of FACA. But perhaps more surprisingly, NSF review panels are also FACA committees. That means all the reviewing we do in IIS is performed by a single giant committee. You are a member of that committee in whatever years you’ve served on an IIS panel.
Information about the committee can be found in the public FACA database (https://www.facadatabase.gov/FACA/s/FACACommittee/a10t0000001gzxHAAQ/com000862), where I learned some interesting facts:
The official name of the committee is “NSF - 1200 - Proposal Review Panel for Information and Intelligent Systems - Agency Authority”.
It was originally formed 11/17/1988 (shortly after I graduated college!), so it’s 35 years old.
The chair of the committee (“designated federal officer”) is me.
The committee had over 1000 members in 2023 and met almost 150 times. (Can you imagine if faculty meetings were like that? Wow.)
The current committee charter dates back to 6/29/2022 and it will be renewed next month. (That’s why it’s currently on my radar.)
I thought you might find this little bit of administrivia interesting if you’ve served on a panel. (And thank you for doing so!) If you haven’t been on a panel but would like to serve, please reach out. Each NSF program has webpage with a contact email address. Emailing the program you’d be interested in reviewing for, along with a copy of your CV so they can assess your “demonstrated scientific and engineering expertise” (that’s what it says in the FACA database), is the best way to let us know you’re willing to contribute in this way. Thank you.
Until next time!
-Michael