by Philipp Steger

Running the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) is quite a challenge. After all, this federal agency employs some 3000 scientists, engineers, technicians, and administrative staff developing standards and measurements and conducting one of the nation’s most interesting technology development programs, the Advanced Technology Program (ATP). Running the National Science Foundation (NSF), the agency that funds about 20% of all federally-supported basic research at American universities and colleges, is certainly an equally formidable task. What sort of challenge would it be to run both NSF and NIST at the same time? An impossible one, you might say. Still, it’s precisely the sort of challenge Arden L. Bement, seems to relish.