[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A REVIEW OF THE NETWORKING AND
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH
AND DEVELOPMENT (NITRD) PROGRAM
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
October 28, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-46
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., ZOE LOFGREN, California
Wisconsin DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
DANA ROHRABACHER, California DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois AMI BERA, California
BILL POSEY, Florida ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts
RANDY K. WEBER, Texas DON S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan PAUL TONKO, New York
STEVE KNIGHT, California MARK TAKANO, California
BRIAN BABIN, Texas BILL FOSTER, Illinois
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia
GARY PALMER, Alabama
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana
DARIN LaHOOD, Illinois
------
Subcommittee on Research and Technology
HON. BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia, Chair
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan PAUL TONKO, New York
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington ERIC SWALWELL, California
GARY PALMER, Alabama EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
October 28, 2015
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Barbara Comstock, Chairwoman,
Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 10
Written Statement............................................ 13
Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 13
Written Statement............................................ 15
Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 18
Written Statement............................................ 20
Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking
Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House
of Representatives............................................. 23
Written Statement............................................ 24
Witnesses:
Dr. Keith Marzullo, Director, National Coordination Office, The
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development
Program
Oral Statement............................................... 26
Written Statement............................................ 29
Dr. Gregory D. Hager, Mandell Bellmore Professor, Department of
Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University; Co-Chair, NITRD
Working Group, The President's Council of Advisors on Science
and Technology
Oral Statement............................................... 41
Written Statement............................................ 44
Dr. Edward Seidel, Director, National Center for Supercomputing
Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Oral Statement............................................... 54
Written Statement............................................ 56
Discussion....................................................... 65
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Keith Marzullo, Director, National Coordination Office, The
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development
Program........................................................ 78
Dr. Gregory D. Hager, Mandell Bellmore Professor, Department of
Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University; Co-Chair, NITRD
Working Group, The President's Council of Advisors on Science
and Technology................................................. 102
Dr. Edward Seidel, Director, National Center for Supercomputing
Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign....... 116
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Statement submitted by Dr. Kenneth Ball, Dean, Volgenau School of
Engineering, George Mason University........................... 132
A REVIEW OF THE NETWORKING
AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (NITRD) PROGRAM
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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2015
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Research and Technology,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Barbara
Comstock [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
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Chairwoman Comstock. The Subcommittee on Research and
Technology will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare
recesses of the Committee at any time.
Welcome to today's hearing entitled ``A Review of the
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development
(NITRD) Program.'' I now recognize myself for five minutes for
an opening statement.
I want to welcome everyone here today. The topic of this
morning's hearing, ``A Review of the Networking and Information
Technology Research and Development Program'', is important to
our national security, global competitiveness, and
technological innovation. This hearing will provide us with an
updated overview of the program, and it will discuss the recent
President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
report, also known as the PCAST report, on the NITRD Program
published in August of 2015.
The NITRD Program was originally authorized in 1991 in the
High Performance Computing Act. It provides the primary
mechanism by which the federal government coordinates this
nation's almost $4 billion of research and development on
advanced information technologies in computing, networking, and
software. Agencies who participate in the program include DHS,
NASA, NIH, NIST, EPA, and the Department of Energy.
Information technology is all around us in our day-to-day
lives: on our smartphones, in our cars, and in our kitchens. It
improves our way of life, even in ways that are not always as
visible to us. As noted in the PCAST report, ``information
technology empowers scientific inquiry, space and Earth
exploration, teaching and learning, consumer buying and
selling, informed decision-making, national security,
transportation, and advanced manufacturing.''
R&D in information technology provides a greater
understanding of how to protect essential systems and networks
that support fundamental sectors of our economy, from emergency
communications and power grids to air-traffic control networks
and national defense systems. This kind of R&D works to prevent
or minimize disruptions to critical information infrastructure,
to protect public and private services, to detect and respond
to threats while mitigating the severity of and assisting in
the recovery from those threats in an effort to support a more
stable and secure nation.
As technology rapidly advances, the need for research and
development continues to evolve. NITRD works to prevent
duplicative and overlapping R&D efforts, thereby enabling more
efficient use of government resources and taxpayer dollars.
Executive Order 13539 assigned the President's Council of
Advisors on Science and Technology, or PCAST, to periodically
review the NITRD Program. PCAST's most recent assessment, which
was published this past August, includes a number of
recommendations. Those recommendations focus on eight specific
R&D areas including, but not limited to: cybersecurity, IT and
health, big data and data-intensive computing, and foundational
computing research.
Considering the significant increase in global
interconnectedness enabled by the internet, and with it,
increased cybersecurity attacks, I was glad to see that the
PCAST report included recommendations of how to improve the
foundations of our cybersecurity.For example, one
recommendation included in the report calls on the National
Science Foundation to sponsor broad foundational research on
methods to facilitate end-to-end construction of trustworthy
systems, particularly for emerging application domains, and on
ways to anticipate and defend against attacks.
I look forward to today's hearing, and I hope we are able
to learn more about the current status of the NITRD Program and
how we can continue improving the program. I am also looking
forward to learning how industry is engaged in this program. As
noted in the PCAST report, ``today's advances rest on a strong
base of research and development created over many years of
government and private investment. Because of these
investments, the United States has a vibrant academia-industry-
government ecosystem to support research and innovation in IT
and to bring the results into practical use.''
It is clear that focusing our investments on information
technology research and development is important to our nation
for a variety of reasons, including economic prosperity,
national security, competitiveness, and quality of life.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Comstock follows:]
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Chairwoman Comstock. And now I thank all witnesses for
being here, and I will turn over the microphone and recognize
my Ranking Member, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski,
for his opening statement.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you and
Chairman Smith for holding this hearing.
I am certainly pleased that we're once again planning to
take up reauthorization legislation for the Networking and
Information Technology R&D Program known as NITRD. The House,
through this committee, has successfully passed a bipartisan
reauthorization of the program in each of the past three
Congresses, and each time the Senate has failed to follow suit.
If we are going to move a bill to the President's desk, each of
us in this room will need to work harder on the necessary
outreach to gather support. It's been too long since the
original High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 has been
updated with the current state of science and technology in the
field, as well as the current operational and management needs
of the program.
Networking and information technology is changing more
rapidly than any of us could have dreamed in 1991. Mosaic, the
World Wide Web browser that first made the internet user-
friendly, was created at the National Center for Supercomputing
Applications at the University Of Illinois in 1993 under a
project funded thanks in large part to the HPC Act. Netscape
founder Marc Andreessen, who was a leader of the Illinois team
before launching his company, was quoted as saying, ``if it had
been left to private industry, it wouldn't have happened, at
least not until years later.'' Dr. Andreessen's statement is as
relevant today as ever. Without question, the 1991 Act set the
stage for a coordinated federal R&D strategy that has
underpinned the U.S. leadership in NIT for the past 25 years.
One reason, I believe, that we are having trouble getting
an update through the Senate is that the private sector has not
weighed in on the importance of NITRD. I understand that in the
process of planning this hearing there was some difficulty
identifying experts in industry at sufficiently high level with
knowledge of the NITRD Program. Even the experts that were
consulted had a hard time coming up with more names to reach
out to. Given that federal investments in stet have
applications across all sectors of our economy and at the
ground level, NITRD involves many public-private partnerships,
I find this troubling that we have not been able to get the
private sector engaged here.
The NITRD Program is a $4 billion investment covering every
aspect of networking and information technology R&D, in
addition to the computing infrastructure required to support
R&D in every field of science and engineering. Four billion
dollars is a large sum by any measure. However, NITRD covers so
many areas of R&D, as the Chairwoman noted, and includes so
much expensive but essential infrastructure, I fear we may be
under-investing in many critical areas such as cybersecurity.
I want to thank the witnesses for submitting detailed
written testimony, and I will highlight just a few topics that
I hope we can discuss this morning. In his testimony, Dr.
Seidel, the current Director of NCSA, discusses the need for
more coherence and coordination around computing research
infrastructure. When we talk about computing research
infrastructure, we mean not just high-performance computing
facilities such as Blue Waters, but also big data
infrastructure, networking testbeds, observation systems, and
more. I'd like to understand better how infrastructure is
planned, coordinated, and categorized under the NITRD Program,
and how the new National Strategic Computing Initiative fits
in.
On the topic of education and workforce, we have heard from
countless experts that our IT workforce pipeline is not keeping
up with the demand. When it comes to education and training,
the federal role may be small compared to the state and private
sector's. However, PCAST made some specific recommendations for
federal agencies that we may be able to take up in the NITRD
legislation, so I hope we have the opportunity to discuss those
recommendations further.
I look forward to hearing from this morning's expert panel.
And with that, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lipinski follows:]
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Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski.
I now recognize the Chairman of the full Committee, Mr.
Smith.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. And let me say that
I appreciate both your and the Ranking Member's thoughtful
comments today.
Madam Chair, the Networking and Information Technology
Research and Development program that we review today,
otherwise known as NITRD, oversees federal investment in
fundamental research areas such as supercomputing,
cybersecurity, big data, and cyber-physical systems.
These research priorities help spur technologies that
protect our country and grow our economy. For example, a
cybersecurity attack is one of the greatest security challenges
that America faces today. It threatens all of our federal
agencies and even our private computer systems. This is just
one area of federal R&D that the NITRD Program addresses.
In the digital age, threats to our country's computer
networking systems constantly evolve. We must effectively
coordinate R&D efforts in order to protect and improve cyber
and data security nationwide. Better network security promotes
U.S. competitiveness, enhances national security, and creates
high-tech jobs.
In fact, the most recent President's Council of Advisors on
Science and Technology report predicts that more than half of
all new science, technology, engineering, and mathematics jobs
will be related to information technology.
A healthy and viable workforce, literate in all STEM
subjects including computer science, is critical to American
industries. Today, a variety of jobs in industries from banking
to engineering to medicine require a familiarity with computer
science. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, computing
and mathematics will be one of the top ten fastest-growing
major occupational groups from 2010 to 2020, with a growth rate
of four percent annually compared to one percent for all other
industries.
Encouraging innovation and technological advancements is a
priority of the Science Committee and is important to high-tech
communities across our country, including those in my district.
The NITRD program focuses on research and development of
new technologies that create more high-tech jobs in STEM
fields. Technological innovation is what drives America's
economy and success. Since the invention of the world's first
supercomputer 50 years ago, the United States has held a
competitive advantage in the field of supercomputing.
In fact, in Austin, Texas, we have seen great achievements
in supercomputing. The Stampede supercomputer at the Texas
Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas in Austin
is the number one open-access supercomputer in the country.
Stampede will be used by more than 1,000 scientists from the
United States and around the world to solve problems that
affect our daily lives. This is a tremendous accomplishment not
only for the innovators at the University of Texas in Austin
but also for all Americans.
But to maintain this competitive advantage, we must
continue to support the fundamental research and development
that encourages innovation, particularly the creation and
design of supercomputers and the applications those computers
support.
It has been two years since this Committee last reviewed
the NITRD Program and passed our Committee's bill to
reauthorize the program. The Advanced--the Advancing America's
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development
Act of 2013 provided for the coordinated R&D efforts necessary
to improve cyber and data security nationwide. Our legislation
also authorized the participating agencies to support large-
scale, long-term, interdisciplinary research. Unfortunately,
that legislation stalled in the Senate.
I want to thank our witnesses today for testifying on the
NITRD program and appreciate their testimony on the current
state of the program, recommendations for how to improve the
program, and future R&D priorities.
And I will yield back. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:]
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Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, Mr. Smith.
I now recognize the Ranking Member of the Full Committee
for a statement, Ms. Johnson.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much. I want to thank you,
Chairwoman Comstock, for holding this important hearing.
The Science, Space, and Technology Committee played a
central role in the development of the High-Performance
Computing Act of 1991, the bill that set the stage for 25 years
of scientific and technological progress under the Networking
and Information Technology Research and Development, or NITRD.
Advances in networking and information technology are a key
driver of our economy, our national security, and our well-
being. NITRD contributes to increased productivity in existing
industries and opens the door for information of new ones.
We've all heard how Google grew out of a basic research project
funded by the National Science Foundation. NITRD protects our
brave men and women in the military by improving intelligence
gathering and sharing and providing them with more effective
and safer equipment. NITRD has improved healthcare and saved
countless lives by contributing to advanced diagnostic and
surgical tools, distance medicine, and improved medical
research.
NIT is truly pervasive in our society. Even those of us who
lived most of our lives before the advent of wireless
technology don't know how we would live today without the
devices we carry around in our pockets.
In their 2015 review of the NITRD Program, the President's
Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, PCAST, expressed
concern that researchers today face difficulty getting funded
for riskier, more speculative long-term investigations.
According to the PCAST report, funding pressures are pushing
scientists to choose more short-term problem-solving research.
I worry deeply about the impact of that and declining budgets
across our science and technology enterprise. I hope that any
budget deal being worked out now and in the future will allow
for increased investments in all fields of science and
engineering. That was just one of many recommendations from
PCAST and other experts.
Today's hearing is an important opportunity for committee
members to hear from experts about key issues in NITRD
reauthorization. Our committee has tried several times to
update and reauthorize NITRD legislation so that it continues
to push the boundaries of information technology, science and
technology, and maximizes opportunities for coordination,
collaboration, and strategic planning among the many NITRD
member agencies.
I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides
of the aisle to develop a good bill and move it through the
House. Perhaps we will have more success this time around in
the Senate.
And I want to thank the excellent panel for being here
today, and I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
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Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
Now, let me introduce our witnesses. Our first witness
today is Dr. Keith Marzullo. Dr. Marzullo currently serves as
the Director of the Federal Networking and Information
Technology Research and Development National Coordination
Office. He also serves as the Co-Chair of NITRD Subcommittee of
the National Science and Technology Council Committee on
Technology, where he oversees the operations and activities of
the NITRD program.
Dr. Marzullo earned his bachelor's degree in physics at
Occidental College, his master's degree in applied physics at
Stanford University, and received his Ph.D. in electrical
engineering from Stanford University, where he developed the
Xerox Research Internet Clock Synchronization protocol, one of
the first practical fault-tolerant protocols for keeping widely
distributed clocks synchronized with each other. Wow.
Dr. Gregory Hager is the Mandell Bellmore Professor of
Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University. He joined the
Department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins in 1999 and has
served as the Deputy Director of the NSF Engineering Research
Center for Surgical Systems and Technology, and as Chair of
Computer Science from 2010 to 2015.
Dr. Hager earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics and
computer science at Luther College, and his master's degree and
Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Edward Seidel, our third and final witness, is the
Director of the National Center for Supercomputing
Applications. In addition to leading the National Center for
Supercomputing Applications, he is a founder Professor in the
University of Illinois Department of Physics and a Professor in
the Department of Astronomy.
Dr. Seidel earned his bachelor's in mathematics and physics
at the College of William and Mary, his master's degree in
physics at the University of Pennsylvania, and his doctorate in
relativistic astrophysics at Yale University.
I now recognize Dr. Marzullo for five minutes to present
his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. KEITH MARZULLO,
DIRECTOR, NATIONAL COORDINATION OFFICE,
THE NETWORKING AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
Dr. Marzullo. Thank you and good morning. I would like to
express my appreciation to Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member
Lipinski, Chair Smith, and Ranking Member Johnson, and the
whole committee for this opportunity to come before you today
to discuss the Networking and Information Technology Research
and Development Program, the National Coordination Office, and
this year's review of the NITRD Program by the President's
Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. I will use the
corresponding acronyms--NITRD, NCO, and PCAST--throughout the
rest of my comments in the interest of brevity.
The NITRD Program provides for the coordination of research
and development in networking and information technology across
21 federal agencies and many other partners, which collectively
represent the federal government's primary investments in
research and development for IT-related technologies. The NCO
supports coordination activities of the NITRD Program.
In my oral comments today, I would like to talk a bit about
current and future research directions. NITRD currently focuses
on several areas, including big data; cloud computing;
cybersecurity; Internet of Things; health IT; high-end
computing; software-defined networking; and the social,
economic, and workforce implications of IT and IT workforce
development.
My written testimony gives several examples of recent
accomplishments by NITRD groups, including strategic plans,
interagency solicitations, and joint workshops, and how they
promoted R&D in their related research areas.
Looking forward, the recommendations of PCAST identified a
key set of R&D areas that with sustained support from Congress
and across agencies will lead to significant progress in
addressing national priorities. Some of the suggested R&D areas
like cybersecurity have been important for some time and still
critically need cross-agency coordination.
There are three areas that PCAST identified, though, that
I'd like to call out: first, big data and data-intensive
computing. We recognized some time ago that scientific
breakthroughs are increasingly powered by advanced computing
capabilities that help researchers manipulate and explore
massive data sets. Breakthroughs are now possible in education;
city and community services; healthcare; and disaster
preparedness prevention, response, and recovery.
However, big data raises important issues with respect to
storage and curation, as well as to privacy. A continued cross-
agency focus will accelerate our progress, advancing both the
foundations and applications of data science and engineering.
Second: high-capacity computing for discovery, security,
and commerce. Here, I would like to note the National Strategic
Computing Initiative established by executive order earlier
this year. Previous investments in high-performance computing
have contributed substantially to national economic prosperity
and have rapidly accelerated scientific discovery, but the path
for continued progress is steep. We need fundamentally new
approaches.
Delivering exascale computing presents hard technical
challenges and further progress will require us to overcome the
physical limitations imposed by current semiconductor
technology. Addressing these challenges requires a whole-
government approach in which NITRD is positioned to play a key
coordinating role.
Third: cyber human systems. The role of people in
networking and information technology and vice versa are both
increasingly important. Robotics is moving from closed
environments like factory floors to open environments like
people's homes. The devices that communicate with each other in
the Internet of Things are increasingly doing so as part of
systems that fundamentally involve people, such as in
automobile traffic management, environmental monitoring, and
aging-in-place support. Cross-agency collaboration is required
to make progress in computing-enabled human interaction,
communication, and augmentation that can enhance human
capabilities and improve learning, education, and training in
all fields.
Let me close by noting that for decades the investments of
the federal government in basic IT research have helped the
nation make good progress on grand-challenge problems and
address national priorities. Basic IT research has led to
significant innovations, to new startups and small businesses,
to birth of entirely new industries, and sometimes to
disruptive technological change. The NITRD Program is
completely involved in this exciting and rapidly changing
research and innovation ecosystem through the program's
mechanisms that facilitate interagency coordination and
collaboration on federally funded research and development
activities.
I thank you for your interest in the NITRD Program and the
opportunity to appear before you today. The NITRD community
looks forward to working with you to further the value of
interagency cooperation in Networking and Information
Technology Research and Development.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Marzullo follows:]
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Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you.
And I now recognize Dr. Hager for five minutes to present
his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. GREGORY D. HAGER,
MANDELL BELLMORE PROFESSOR,
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE,
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY;
CO-CHAIR, NITRD WORKING GROUP,
THE PRESIDENT'S COUNCIL OF ADVISORS
ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Dr. Hager. Thank you and good morning. I would like to
express my appreciation as well to Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking
Member Lipinski, Chairman Smith, and Ranking Member Johnson,
and the other members of the Subcommittee on Research and
Technology for this opportunity to present my perspectives on
the NITRD Program.
As you are aware, by executive order the PCAST is charged
with periodically reviewing the NITRD Program and has delivered
reports previously in 2010 and 2013. To perform this most
recent review, PCAST convened a working group consisting of
seven experts from academia and industry. I co-chaired this
group, together with Dr. Susan Graham, a PCAST member and
professor emerita at the University of California Berkeley. I
am pleased to be able to share with you a summary of some of
the findings and recommendations of the report. My written
testimony has a more complete overview of the report.
In the report, we note that when the High Performance
Computing Act was introduced in 1991, much of computing
research, particularly at the high end, focused on advances in
computing systems themselves. As already noted in other opening
remarks, today's picture is far broader. Computing empowers
scientific inquiry, exploration, teaching and learning, and
consumer buying and selling. Nearly every device, be it a car,
a kitchen appliance, equipment on the manufacturing floor, or a
child's toy is enhanced by information technology.
As already noted the National Bureau of Labor Statistics
projects that more than half of all new jobs in STEM will be
related to information technology.
These incredible advances in computing are reshaping the
field of computing itself, creating an expanding research
agenda that is increasingly driven by interactions among
computing devices, people, and the physical world they inhabit,
and which it is also increasingly important to many national
priorities.
In preparing this most recent review, the PCAST NITRD
working group consulted previous NITRD reviews, interviewed
experts in a variety of areas, and ultimately chose eight key
areas upon which to present findings and recommendations. Two
national priorities, cybersecurity and health are highlighted.
With respect to cybersecurity, the report calls out the need to
support continued research on the development of secure
systems, research on the management of imperfect systems and
human fallibility, and mechanisms to translate new solutions
into practice.
With respect to health, the report notes a growing
community of technology researchers working in this space and
highlights the need to empower this community through open
interfaces, standards, and mechanisms for accelerating the
deployment of solutions into practice.
The report highlights two areas: cyber human systems and
privacy where there are strong cross-disciplinary ties with the
social and behavioral sciences and with the policy community.
Cyber human systems are computational systems that support
communication and coordination of individuals, groups, and
organizations.
As noted by Dr. Marzullo, advances in understanding of
cyber human systems, will rely on fundamental research to
understand the interplay of people and computing in
coordination with mission-focused research and important
societal needs such as education and health.
The report finds that privacy is increasingly threatened by
the growth of online activity. Advances in privacy research
will require deep collaboration among computer scientists,
legal scholars, and behavioral and social scientists to inform
both the design of computing systems and the drafting of
policies and regulations.
Two areas where past investments are beginning to pay off
for NITRD: IT-based interaction with the physical world and
data-intensive computing. Recommendations for both of these
areas call out the need for additional basic research but also
highlight the need for coordination with mission agencies to
advance applications of this work.
Finally, two areas in the technology base are reviewed.
First, high-capability computing continues to be essential to
our nation. The National Strategic Computing Initiative is an
opportunity to implement a sustained program of long-term
fundamental research on architectures, algorithms and software
to ensure continued advances for both data-intensive and
computing-intensive applications.
And last but most importantly, many of the advances we
enjoy today grew from decades of foundational research. The
report emphasizes that continued support for foundational
research is essential to provide the basis for future
innovations and disruptive advances in the use of IT.
Noting the anticipated growth in IT-related jobs, the
report discusses the educational needs of the nation and
recommends that the NITRD Subcommittee work in partnership with
NSF and the Department of Education to develop educational and
training opportunities in IT at all levels.
Finally, the report reviews the current organization of the
NITRD Program and makes several recommendations to ensure the
NITRD Program keeps pace with the continuing evolution of the
computing field.
I will close by reiterating the findings our working
committee affirmed that the NITRD Program continues to play an
important role in guiding effective investments in computing
research. I would like to again thank the Committee for this
opportunity to discuss the findings of the NITRD working group,
and I stand ready to help the Committee to advance its efforts
in advancing computing research.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hager follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, Dr. Hager.
I now recognize Dr. Seidel.
TESTIMONY OF DR. EDWARD SEIDEL, DIRECTOR,
NATIONAL CENTER FOR SUPERCOMPUTING APPLICATIONS,
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
Dr. Seidel. Thank you. Good morning, Chairwoman Comstock,
Ranking Member Lipinski, Mand embers of the Subcommittee, thank
you for the chance to participate in this important discussion.
I am Professor Ed Seidel, the Director of NCSA at the
University of Illinois. I previously served at the National
Science Foundation as the Assistant Director for the
Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences and also as
the Director of the Office of Cyber Infrastructure. In those
capacities I also co-chaired subcommittees under OSTP's
Committees on Science and on Technology. I'm also very familiar
with the importance to the nation of networking information
technology, or NIT, across all areas of research and with the
National Strategic Computing Initiative, or NSCI, and its
importance in maintaining American competitiveness and research
and in economic development. Indeed, I can think of no other
single initiative that has as much potential to support and
maintain U.S. leadership in research and innovation.
I would first like to outline some critical trends in
science, engineering and industrial research that must guide
federal investments in NIT. First, as more complex problems in
science and society are addressed, R&D is increasingly
collaborative and interdisciplinary. How do drugs interact with
a virus? How can jet engines be made more efficient? Answers
will require integration of expertise from many areas of
science and engineering and from big data and from multiple
instruments and big computing. All are needed, and such
problems do not respect disciplinary, nor agency boundaries.
Second, complex problems are increasingly computational and
data-intensive requiring integration of large-scale computing
facilities and data from many observation systems and
instruments. Without this, many problems are beyond the reach
of the nation's current capabilities.
Activities at the center that I direct, NCSA, beautifully
illustrate these trends. Funded by many agencies, NCSA leads
the two largest single computing investments from the NSF
accounting for over half-a-billion dollars. The Blue Waters
supercomputer, the most powerful in the academic world,
provides unique science capabilities to over a thousand
researchers across the nation. And I have a book here just hot
off the presses that has dozens and dozens of projects that are
being done on machines like Blue Waters and others that can't
be done in any other way.
The XSEDE project also provides advanced digital services
for resources at many other national computing and data sites.
Together, these highly oversubscribed facilities support over a
billion dollars worth of externally funded research projects,
only about half of which come from the National Science
Foundation with the remainder coming from NIH, DOE, NASA, and
others.
NCSA is also building data services for the Large Synoptic
Survey Telescope funded jointly by the NSF and the DOE at close
to a billion dollars. This revolutionary telescope will produce
data at rates never before seen in the history of astronomy,
and NCSA will play the primary role in hosting, processing, and
serving data to the nation's science communities.
Such 21st century investments--in this case, a telescope--
are huge data-generators and they need huge computers. They are
merely peripherals to the computing infrastructure needed for
science. Costing upwards of a billion dollars each, such
instruments are more silicon than they are steel, and they need
to be a part of the overall ecosystem of national information
technology investments.
Underlying all of this in this era of big data and
computing, in order to maintain U.S. competitiveness in
research and innovation, the NSCI is desperately needed. A
whole-of-government effort is required with deep coordination
across the spectrum of agencies, their communities, and digital
methodologies. The NSCI rightly singled out NSF in a key
integrative role in this broad ecosystem.
In August, PCAST made recommendations regarding NITRD and
NCO that I agree with, and I am confident that the current
leadership will do an outstanding job acting on these
recommendations, enabling them to play a major role in
coordinating federal NIT investments.
Beyond the PCAST recommendations, however, I would urge the
Committee to consider three points: First, highly compute- and
data-intensive instruments should be a part of the overall
portfolio of NIT coordination. Each such instrument is
typically more expensive than the largest single computing
facilities with computing, networking, and data investments
comparable to those of the largest HPC centers, yet they are
often not coordinated with the rest of the system and they need
to be.
Two, being science-driven, coordinating federal investment
in NIT should involve organizations beyond NITRD, including
groups under the Committee on Science. These science
communities cut across all disciplines, they are funded by many
agencies, and they are driving the integration of computing,
data, and networking, and they need to be deeply involved.
And finally, new funding vehicles for large NIT investments
that are designed to be more coordinated may also be needed.
For example, NSF's MREFC vehicle for funding large facilities
and DOE's CD process are used successfully to fund major
instruments. One should examine whether such vehicles could be
adapted for multiagency coordination.
Thank you for giving me the chance to testify. I hope that
I can help realize the great vision of research and innovation
vital to the nation that I think we all share.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Seidel follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you so much. Thank all of you.
It is fascinating work that you all do, so I appreciate the
opportunity to discuss it this morning with you.
And without objection, we have the statement of Dr. Kenneth
Ball from George Mason University, which will also be included
in the record.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Ball appears in Appendix II]
Chairwoman Comstock. So I now recognize myself for five
minutes for questions, and we'll proceed with our others here.
I want to ask all of you to tell us how we can have more
interface between academia, industry, and government. What is
the ecosystem here and how do we sort of get more bang for our
buck? It's all being utilized in a more efficient way but, how
are we getting all of these things on a faster track. Do you
have any thoughts on how we might better get industry
engagement?
Dr. Marzullo. I'll start. I do want to note that in NITRD
we actually have a fairly broad reach into industry, and we do
it in a few ways. One is through workshops. For example, in the
wireless area, wireless spectrum research and development,
they've been running a series of workshops, seven of them,
which have been looking at all the issues dealing with the
access of this limited resource, this spectrum sharing. And
these workshops are attended by people from industry,
academics, and government people. So in these workshops, for
example, we've got people from T-Mobile, Microsoft, Agilent,
Vanu, Comsearch, Qualcomm. So we have a reach into that.
Similarly, in our Cyber Physical Systems Senior Steering
Group, one of the efforts being run by NIST, the Global City
Teams Challenge, has been forming partnerships of industry,
academics, and communities to look at cyber-physical smart
cities, smart communities. And through the CPS Senior Steering
Group, because of the coordination we do, NSF jumped in to help
participate in those efforts. And so that's another path in.
We also have a couple of groups, the Joint Engineering
Team, which looks at information sharing among federal agencies
in scientific networking. We have another one called MAGIC,
which is our Middleware and Grid, and these also involve
industry. They come and talk with us. Microsoft, Verizon, and
Cisco have been members.
So I think we are reaching out. We can do more but I think
we are reaching out.
Chairwoman Comstock. All right. Thank you. And, Dr. Hager?
Dr. Hager. So I was thinking about, you know, the different
perspectives on industry, academic, government interaction, and
perhaps I can give you a couple of different views of that. So,
as you know the IT industry is tremendously impetuous almost in
its development of new technologies. And so the topics and the
directions change quickly.
That being said, there's a tremendous interaction at the
grassroots level among academic researchers and industry. And
that's really through students moving back and forth with
industry, as well as some collaborative projects with industry.
You have to understand many companies do not have industrial
research labs anymore in the IT industry, and so it really is
very much a grassroots level interaction.
I will, however, highlight--picking up on Dr. Marzullo's
response that several venues where we do bring together
government, industry, and academic researchers. So I also chair
the Computing Community Consortium. And in the--that consortium
we hold visioning workshops where we talk about new topics in
computing, and we always have representation from industry,
government, and academic researchers. So there is a
conversation and there is a connection even if it may not be
immediately visible from the highest levels.
Chairwoman Comstock. Okay.
Dr. Seidel. Yes, thanks for the question.
I can give you a couple of different answers. So from my
present post as the Director of NCSA, I can say we have many,
many deep interactions with companies. We have a private sector
program that has over two dozen companies that actually pay to
be members of our consortium, and we work very deeply with
them. Some of them--Caterpillar has been there for over 30
years. And when the original NSF supercomputing program started
in 1985-86 in that period, the NCSA leadership at the time took
out a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal and said we are
open for business. And that led to a lot of industrial
relationships with the University of Illinois and has actually
led to an entire industrial park that is now just south of
campus. And those relationships continue.
In the present day when the National Strategic Computing
Initiative was announced, I was invited to the Eisenhower
Executive Office Building for a little discussion on that, and
I would say over half of the participants in the room were from
industry. And some of the most passionate members of that panel
talked about the need, for example, to have large-scale
computing investments at the federal level so that they would
be able to do things that they can't do otherwise.
For example, jet engine development, a mere one percent
increase in the efficiency, which would require supercomputing
at the level of, say, 10 to 100 times what we have now in order
to really do that sort of work well, would allow tens of
billions of dollars in savings in the airline industry for fuel
costs, for example. So there are lots of examples where we work
together with industry.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you. And I think any time and
any place you can help us assist with telling that story, so
people really understand the multiplier effect of all the
research that is going on and how it's integrated into
everything that we see. So thank you very much.
And I yield five minutes to Mr. Lipinski.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. I just want to follow up on a
couple things there. And, Dr. Seidel, I've been to U of I and
seen what you've done there by having these industries come in.
And it's great to see and it's great to hear all these examples
of how industry has really benefitted. So as we move forward, I
think we'll have to have further discussions on how we can make
sure that we get them involved in making sure that this NITRD
works as well as it can.
But I wanted to ask Dr. Marzullo, you had talked about
this--mentioned this at least in your answer to the
Chairwoman's question, but I wanted to get a little bit--talk a
little bit more about the smart cities and connected
communities, multiagency framework. Can you tell us more about
this and how are the private sector and city governments
themselves involved in this?
Dr. Marzullo. Mr. Lipinski, thank you for the question. The
Global Cities Team Challenge was an effort that was started by
NIST, and it happened at about the same time that the National
Science Foundation was looking at ways to frame their efforts
in cyber-physical systems. Cyber-physical systems are these
complex systems that are--involve the physical world, people,
and computation. And a natural partnership grew out between the
two. The NIST has been working on a framework for cyber-
physical systems and NSF has been looking at the foundational
aspects.
So there was a partnership that sprung up being led by
NIST, Chris Greer, to build these kinds of projects that tied
together communities like Montgomery County, researchers, and
companies small and large in developing innovative approaches
to smart city problems. And then the National Science
Foundation used its own ability to reach into its own
researchers to help motivate them into moving into this.
NSF thought this was a great idea because this also helped
form a bridge between the research that was going on to
industry in terms of applications.
Mr. Lipinski. Very good. I want to turn in my remaining
time to computing infrastructure. We know that big data and
data science broadly speaking is becoming a larger part of
scientific research with every passing year. But at the same
time, research infrastructure in this space, including HPCs
like Blue Waters but also testbeds and storage for large
datasets is increasingly expensive. So how do we weigh the
benefits of improving our computing infrastructure against the
other research priorities for the purposes of the NITRD
Program? So whoever wants to--would like to jump in here. Dr.
Seidel?
Dr. Seidel. Yes, thank you. There are--it's clear that
investments in computing impact all areas of science and
engineering. So the Blue Waters facility is supporting areas
from every single directorate at NSF. It's very interesting to
note that even in the social sciences, which you wouldn't think
of as being highly computational, they're using as much------
Mr. Lipinski. Oh, I understand they're highly
computational.
Dr. Seidel. They're using--I know you--that's correct. But
many of them are using--that community--that directorate is
using as much computing time as the Math and Physical Sciences
Directorate did just ten years ago. So it's in every single
area. And so the point is that investments in these areas can
really impact all other areas, and they're fundamental to them.
They can't do their work without them. So I think that's one of
the issues to be thinking about when you're thinking about how
to distribute budgets.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. Dr. Hager?
Dr. Hager. So I guess I would echo Dr. Seidel's remarks. As
we see the field evolving, we're seeing that data is playing a
larger and larger role across many, many areas, and it's
clearly going to continue along those lines. I would note that,
you know, other nations--for example, Japan--has a much more
advanced capability broadly in data-intensive computing and
high-performance computing than the United States currently
does. And clearly, they see a value in investing in that area.
So it is an important area. I agree the investments have to
be weighed against the impact that they are making in these
other areas, but they are the infrastructure upon which many,
many areas build.
Mr. Lipinski. Dr. Marzullo, do you have anything to add?
Dr. Marzullo. I'll just add a brief note here in my time
that the groups within NITRD often talk about infrastructure
investments, and they find ways to try to help increase the
sharing of them. We have a wonderful taxonomy of wireless
testbeds, for example, available on our website.
Mr. Lipinski. Good. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you.
And I now recognize Mr. LaHood for five minutes.
Mr. LaHood. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to thank the
witnesses for your testimony today and for your commitment and
dedication to what you do.
Dr. Seidel, we appreciate you being here, and thank you for
the work you do at University of Illinois with our program
there. And I wanted to just follow up a little bit on your
reference to the private sector partner program. You referenced
Caterpillar and some of the other companies that you work with.
In terms of kind of the real-world effects of that in terms
of product design, competitiveness, and the iForge project, can
you talk a little bit more about that? And I guess as a follow-
up, do you think we're doing enough to highlight what we do in
the private sector in making people aware of that, and is there
room to grow there?
Dr. Seidel. So thank you for the question.
Just a little bit of background, as I mentioned, we have
many private sector partners that are focused on using
computing to advance their business, and we have a specifically
dedicated computing system called iForge that is just for
industrial use. So they really use that facility in the way
that they want to. So we operate it for them. They're members
of our program, and so they not only use the facility but they
use the staff and the expertise, just as important or more
important than the facility because computers come and go in
fairly short timescales. It's the incredible scientific and
computing expert staff that we maintain. And all the centers,
I'm sure, would say the same thing. That's the most important
aspect.
So they are--and part of the teams that work with industry
and industry then provides problems for us to work on, whether
it's scaling their codes or doing things like engine design or,
you know, pharmaceutical design and so on, we help them scale
their codes up to larger and larger processer accounts. And so
if they want to graduate, say, from the iForge machine, which
is much smaller, to a Blue Waters machine, which allows them to
do things that they couldn't do anywhere else, including in
their own homegrown computing facilities where they just don't
have facilities like that--the Blue Waters machine is a $200
million facility--then we help them make that scaling--make
that jump.
Another thing that we're doing, though, we're seeing
increasingly that there is the concern about big data, and
they're very, very focused on big data. And so there's a new
NSF program called the Big Data Hub, which I'm the PI for the
so-called Midwest Big Data Hub--it'll be announced next week--
and it is about private-public partnerships. And we have many,
many companies, state organizations, cities, as well as
academic organizations all working together on this.
Mr. LaHood. Thank you.
Dr. Hager, I wanted to--you referenced earlier, I guess, in
the last set of questions about Japan. In terms of U.S.
leadership and where we are with competitiveness in the world
when it comes to supercomputing, can you talk a little bit
about how we rank worldwide and where we're at in terms of our
competitiveness and looking to the future a little bit and what
we need to do to stay where we're at or to improve?
Dr. Hager. Thank you for the question.
So as I'm sure you know, we no longer nationally have the
fastest supercomputer in the world. That happens to be in China
right now. And as I said, there are other nations investing in
greater computing capacity. So I think it is an important area
for the field broadly to invest in not just because of what it
enables in science but also what it enables in technology
research. So many of the advances that we see in the broader
computing field often start in the high-performance computing
field and trickle down.
The other opportunity I'd like to highlight is that, as we
develop more and more advanced machines, often the challenge is
to actually achieve the highest possible performance on those
machines. And there are some very interesting and very
fundamental computing research problems simply to take
advantage of the resources we have, as well as building greater
resources.
Mr. LaHood. And I guess is there--in terms of being--you
know, continuing on the path we're on or moving up to compete
with China, I mean is that strictly a resource issue or is
that--are there other factors that relate to that?
Dr. Hager. Well, certainly, you know, resources are
important. We can't succeed without applying substantial
resources.
The technical issues involved in developing the next
generation of computing, however, are really quite amazing when
you start to think about, for example, what it would take to
build a so-called exascale computing engine. There are
fundamental physical limitations that we're running up against.
There are architectural limitations that we run up against.
It's not clear that the current technologies that we have--or
in fact it is clear the current technologies we have simply
won't scale. And so it's a matter of resources but resources
applied broadly to achieve breakthroughs in several areas in
order to advance computing to the next level.
Mr. LaHood. And, last question, do you think we're prepared
to go to that next level currently?
Dr. Hager. Certainly, we have I think nationally the
capability to go to that level, the people-resources capability
to go to that level. I think it's a matter of investment,
focus, and strategic planning to achieve that next set of
performance levels.
Mr. LaHood. Thank you.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you. And I now recognize Mr.
Hultgren for five minutes.
Mr. Hultgren. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you all for being here. This is an important subject
and really appreciate the work that you're all doing. I think
the NITRD Program is important and gives federal agencies the
ability to better work together in multidisciplinary fashion to
tackle the big scientific and technological challenges we are
beginning to face.
Dr. Seidel, it's very good to see you again. It was so good
to be at your amazing, literally amazing facility back in
April. I still talk about that often, and I've visited quite a
few different wonderful sites in Illinois. We do have a proud
depth of scientific ecosystem in Illinois. But one of the most
impressive was being there at Blue Waters. So I just want to
thank you for your work and encourage my colleagues whenever
you get the chance to come to Champaign-Urbana to be able to
see a phenomenal facility that is absolutely having a big
impact. So thank you for your work.
In your written testimony, Dr. Seidel, you mentioned that
NCSA is deeply engaged in numerous big data projects. I also
appreciate your discussing the LSST project. I think it's
important for my colleagues to know that this was the number-
one on-the-ground priority in the last Planetary Science
Decadal Survey. So the work you are doing primarily with NSF
funding really enables all of our other scientific fields.
With our computational capabilities being what they are
today, how does the government need to account for what many
are calling more of a data-management problem than a computing
problem, and would you agree with that assessment?
Dr. Seidel. Thank you very much for all those remarks.
There are major challenges in data management. That's for
sure. I would call it an expanding universe that is growing
beyond the traditional HPC investments and so on. So it's a
much bigger set of problems, and we're still grappling with
them. There are many aspects of this from what you do with all
the data. So whether it's data that are collected from
telescopes or from accelerators or from light sources and so
on, or the output from supercomputers--you have to figure out
what to do with all of that--the data are scientifically
valuable, and they also have economic value as well.
And in fact, the entire Materials Genome Initiative that
was announced 4 or five years ago--when I was at the NSF, I
played a role in that--was a lot about making data computing,
theory, and experiment all integral to an approach to materials
that was really an economic development initiative because it
was aimed at industrial competitiveness and making new
materials at a much cheaper cost in half the time. And it was
all largely seen as data being the integrator. And so creating
services that make data that are collected from scientific
activities, making them available to other researchers helps to
ensure the reproducibility of the science, it helps others to
take advantage of it more quickly, and it makes it directly
available to industry so that they can take it up more quickly
and then begin to make things. And that was what the Materials
Genome was about.
So there are many, many issues, and I'd say the data issues
are growing rapidly, just as are the computing ones. We can't
forget about them. They go together.
Mr. Hultgren. For years, industry and governments alike
have used FLOPS as the benchmark standard for our fastest
computers. I think this is a certainly valuable measure, which
should not be abandoned, but what other ways do we need to be
looking at our computational abilities to make sure that we
have the most capable machines? Dr. Seidel?
Dr. Seidel. We have a lot of work to do, and every aspect,
as we heard on the technologies themselves, on the expertise of
the scientific communities to take advantage of these machines
that are getting harder to process or to program. If you have a
million processors--the Blue Waters computer has close to a
million processors, think about how you would program such a
machine to do a problem in astrophysics or in biology. So we
have to invest a lot in the training of the next generation of
researchers. That's really, really critical.
And in fact, I had the privilege to meet with about 60
students from the XSEDE project who were at a conference in St.
Louis this summer, I queried them and they all said that they
were not learning what they needed in their university
curriculum; they were learning it in these workshops that we
were holding. So there's a lot that needs to be done in every
aspect of this.
Mr. Hultgren. You also discussed the Strategic Computing
Initiative, and I've been in touch with Dr. Blazey, you know,
at NIU who was encouraging this kind of initiative when he was
OSTP. Earlier this year and in the previous Congress the House
passed my legislation, the American Supercomputing Leadership
Act, which would create a dedicated exascale program and ensure
a more open facility to research the research community.
I agree with the three leadership agencies in the
initiative, and I think it's important to stress to my
colleagues the national defense needs, mainly in workforce
development, that are developed first outside of DOD with
students and researchers at NSF and DOE.
Quickly--and I'm just about out of time--but how should we
improve our interagency working groups at NITRD to better serve
our research capabilities and connect the core capabilities
certain agencies have? And also if--maybe we can follow up in
writing, too, if you have further comment on PCAST review. That
may be helpful as well.
Mr. Seidel. I would just make a quick answer to that. I
think the recommendations actually were excellent. I think they
need to be acted on, and I'm very confident that they will be.
I'd like to see a broader set of activities, though, that also
really deeply engages the science communities. The NITRD
Program does focus naturally on the technologies and so--but
the science communities and the engineering communities are the
ones driving this so they need to be engaged.
Mr. Hultgren. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I
yield back.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you. And I now recognize Mr.
Palmer for five minutes.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Dr. Hager, in the past, NITRD Program has had problems with
the way in which participating agencies categorized their NITRD
budgets. Is that still a problem?
Dr. Hager. So thank you for the question.
Certainly, in the past there have been issues related to
the question of what goes into the program component areas, the
PCAs, which are the budget categories by which one measures the
investments in the NITRD Program. I think that part of those
issues had to do with the fact that the PCAs historically were
quite outdated, as I have already noted. They're over 20 years
old. They in many cases no longer naturally fit the activities
within the computing research field. And that's in fact why we
spent a great deal of effort in our working group attempting to
understand first how one would go about changing the PCAs and
also suggested a process by which they could be continually
renewed so that there is a natural mapping between the PCAs and
areas of interest within computing research.
To give one simple example, we have the National Robotics
Initiative but we don't have a natural way to measure
investment in robotics. So where would robotics go in the
existing PCAs?
Mr. Palmer. Do you--does NITRD, which is a--is the main
source of federally funded information technology. Is there
anything being done to ensure that there's no duplicate
research that's being done in the agencies? Would you like to
respond to that, Dr. Marzullo?
Dr. Marzullo. Thank you for the question. The way NITRD
works is we have several groups where we have representatives
from the agencies discuss their portfolios and review what is
being funded. The details of this are published every year in
our supplement, and much of the work in there is not only to
avoid duplication but to find ways we can work with each other,
which is I think even more important. I'd like to say the
secret sauce of NITRD is collaboration.
Mr. Palmer. That's right. Thanks.
Dr. Hager, your testimony mentions the tension between
purchasing the long-term foundational research and short-term
problem-solving research. How is NITRD approaching that
problem?
Dr. Hager. So thank you for the question.
I think it's important to understand that NITRD represents
an extremely broad collection of agencies, including NSF, which
of course is the center of foundational research and computing
and extending through mission agencies, including DARPA, NIST,
Department of Education, and so forth.
So NITRD in many ways is really, I believe a convening
ground where there is the opportunity to have exactly the
discussions of the balance between basic research and more
applied mission-focused research. And my understanding, through
discussions with NITRD, is that there are a variety of
conversations that take place among those agencies to achieve
that balance.
I will say the remarks were also directed to the fact that
as we were saying, computing research funding is sometimes
challenging to come by, so one is, as a young faculty member,
very tempted to focus on concrete and short-term problems
simply because one can get funding from the broadest set of
agencies in that case. And that is the sort of thing that will
advance your career, to show those immediate results.
Mr. Palmer. And this question can apply to all of you, but
in terms of the short-term problem-solving research, is that
something that the private sector could play a greater role in
and leave the longer-term stuff to the federal government?
Dr. Hager. So one of the interesting evolutions in
computing research that I alluded to earlier is that relatively
few companies now have industrial research groups within them.
So Microsoft is a perfect example of a company that still does
have a research group, and it's possible to use that group as a
buffer between short-term and long-term research.
I think at this point, because of where the industry is, it
really is becoming more incumbent on academia, we're finding,
to really have that ecosystem of both short-term and long-term
research. I think we would welcome the opportunity to better
support some of the shorter-term research through other
mechanisms if they were available, but at this point we don't
see those mechanisms. And so you're seeing the community really
fill that gap that has been created by the lack of industrial
research groups.
Mr. Palmer. Well, this is fascinating and necessary work,
and I want to thank you for being here today. And one of the
more polite groups of witnesses we've had. Thank you.
Chairwoman Comstock. I now recognize Mr. Abraham for five
minutes.
Mr. Abraham. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the
doctors for being here, too.
Dr. Marzullo, is there any way the National Coordination
Office itself can be improved, enhanced to support NITRD?
Dr. Marzullo. First, I'm going to give a shout-out to the
National Coordination Office crew. Some of them are sitting
behind me and they're a fantastic group of people, I must say.
I think the improvements we've been looking at are better
ways to manage the NITRD Program, so how we can have better
group structure, how we can get information more quickly.
So--and I actually support all of the recommendations that
PCAST made. I think that was a wonderful set of groups, and we
are acting on them.
But the National Coordination Office itself, they're a
great group of people. I couldn't want a better staff.
Mr. Abraham. All right. Dr. Hager, how often is the NITRD
Program reviewed, and how often would you want it--to review
it?
Dr. Hager. Well, thank you for the question.
So the current practice is to review every two years, and
as you see, we did 2010, 2013, 2015, so we're almost managing
every two years. I would say two years, I believe, is too
often. It's very difficult to really perform a meaningful
review just two years after the previous review happened.
There's really not a lot of time to react.
Mr. Abraham. What would you say would be the ideal number?
Dr. Hager. So I would say in the three- to five-year time
frame would be------
Mr. Abraham. Okay.
Dr. Hager. --a more meaningful time to do a NITRD review.
Mr. Abraham. Now, in your report you made several
recommendations to NITRD. The stakeholders themselves, how are
they receiving those? Are they a positive response, pushback?
What's their take on the recs you made?
Dr. Hager. So I have to say that, personally, I have only
heard positive responses from the individuals with whom I've
interacted. And I'd like to compliment Dr. Marzullo. I know
that he has already within his office been reacting to many of
the recommendations and, you know, he may have additional
comments in terms of how those changes have been filtering
through the NITRD Program.
Mr. Abraham. Okay. And this is for any or all of you. I
know the DOE is not part of the NITRD right now. Would that be
a good thing, the Department of Education?
Dr. Marzullo. Department of Education is a participating
agency, so we have had representatives come to talk about STEM,
and we always welcome them more.
Mr. Abraham. But they're not a--just a steadfast member?
They do bring people in, though?
Dr. Marzullo. They do bring people in. They do work with
us, yes.
Mr. Abraham. And you think that's good enough? I mean
you're getting enough input from that aspect to do some good
things with them?
Dr. Marzullo. I would always welcome more contact from----
--
Mr. Abraham. Education.
Dr. Marzullo. I'm sorry, education. They're a strong
agency.
Mr. Abraham. Okay. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. I
yield back.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you. Actually, I will take the
prerogative of one more question picking up on talking about
the workshops that were often more helpful for the students
than the classrooms. I was wondering if all of you might
address a little bit about how we need to change education for
dealing with the rapid changes that are going on in this whole
industry. I think of a friend of mine, his son who's a
brilliant student, went to Stanford, and then came to him after
the first semester and said, you know, Dad, I'm dropping out of
school. You know, as the Dad, you're kind of like oh, no, and
he said, no, it's good. Like I'm going to work because if I
don't go out and work in this field, I'm going to get behind by
being in the classroom. So he was taking his classes while he's
working and doing this because he was worried kind of about
what you said.
So how can we change that education framework and dynamic
and really have a--I mean he's making money now while he's
taking his classes, too. And I've seen in my district we have a
cybersecurity high school program. So how can we push this down
to high school, too, where these kids are getting trained to go
into the cybersecurity field out of high school and they are
being recruited out of high school into really good-paying
jobs, and then having those employers pay for them to get
college credits as they move forward? So they basically have a
free college degree waiting for them when they get out of this
program. So how we can really modernize our education system to
deal with this quickly adapting industry?
Dr. Seidel. I'll make a couple quick comments on that and
then let the others comment. When I was meeting with those
students, I was really astounded to hear that they're basically
still being trained in 17th century methods in physics, which
is learning calculus, but not in 21st century, even 20th
century methods in the classroom. So this is largely due to the
fact that professors are teaching the time-honored tradition
and so on. And so they need a little bit of a kick, I think,
often. And so I think agencies can help them move forward
faster by incentivizing changes and providing programs to tell
them what they expect from their research activities and so on.
So that's one way this can be done.
My son also was recruited out of college and decided to
stay in. It was largely because I think he thought the longer-
term prospects for him would be good there, but he did really
think about the same exact thing.
Dr. Hager. So let me just first just say on a personal
level I understand completely how challenging it can be to
advance teaching in the classroom. In my area, computer vision,
there--I often come into a lecture and say ten years ago we
didn't even know how to begin to solve this problem. We now
consider it a solved problem. We're actually building on top of
it. So the field really does evolve quite rapidly.
One of the challenges I'd really like to highlight that the
stress that the education--computing education is under these
days. In my department, the number of majors has between
tripled and quadrupled over the last few years, which creates
enormous challenges in the classroom. I think the notion of
looking for opportunities to bring experiential learning into
the classroom. And I would actually highlight I think this is a
place where industry could play a strong role. If we had
representatives from industry coming into the classroom and
teaching, it would both address the capacity needs within our
department, as well as providing, I think, a very sorely needed
perspective on where the computing industry is today.
Chairwoman Comstock. That's a great idea, yes.
Dr. Marzullo. Part of the problem you've already mentioned
is the rapidly changing field of information technology and
trying to even get the teachers up to speed on what's going on,
get the material into their hands. Sometimes we seem to think
that MOOCs are going to solve everything, and they will to a
small degree, but training the teachers, getting information,
developing material is a priority.
I also think there are some very good programs out there
for cybersecurity, the Scholarship for Service program, the
Cyber Challenge Program of DHS. More will be done in that. I
personally am interested to see when such programs will start
springing up in the area of data analytics. That is clearly the
next wave, and there's going to be a huge demand for this, and
I think we're unprepared for that wave.
Chairwoman Comstock. Well, thank you. I really appreciate
all of our--actually, Mr. Lipinski, did you want--okay.
Well, thank you for your expertise and for your enthusiasm
for your work. And I'd like to thank all of your colleagues
that came with you today. This is an exciting area that we
certainly always have to get caught up on. If it's hard for
these brilliant students to keep up on it, you can imagine how
challenging it is for all of us.
So we appreciate your thoughts and ideas, and any time you
can give us more information on how we might better assist in
what you're doing, it would be most appreciated. So thank you
for the opportunity to visit with you today.
And the Committee is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:21 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Dr. Keith Marzullo
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Dr. Gregory D. Hager
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Dr. Edward Seidel
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
Statement submitted by Dr. Kenneth Ball
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]