The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health. With an annual budget of about $8.3 billion, the NSF funds approximately 25% of all federally supported basic research conducted by the United States' colleges and universities. In some fields, such as mathematics, computer science, economics, and the social sciences, the NSF is the major source of federal backing.
William Julius Wilson is an American sociologist, a professor at Harvard University, and an author of works on urban sociology, race, and class issues. Laureate of the National Medal of Science, he served as the 80th President of the American Sociological Association, was a member of numerous national boards and commissions. He identified the importance of neighborhood effects and demonstrated how limited employment opportunities and weakened institutional resources exacerbated poverty within American inner-city neighborhoods.
Rita Rossi Colwell is an American environmental microbiologist and scientific administrator. Colwell holds degrees in bacteriology, genetics, and oceanography and studies infectious diseases. Colwell is the founder and Chair of CosmosID, a bioinformatics company. From 1998 to 2004, she was the 11th Director and 1st female Director of the National Science Foundation. She has served on the board of directors of EcoHealth Alliance since 2012.
Walter Eugene Massey is an American educator, physicist, and executive. President emeritus of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and of Morehouse College, he is chairman of the board overseeing construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope, and serves as trustee chair of the City Colleges of Chicago. During his career, Massey has served as head of the National Science Foundation, director of Argonne National Laboratory, and chairman of Bank of America. He has also served in professorial and administrative posts at the University of California, University of Chicago, Brown University, and the University of Illinois.
Cornelius Francis "Neal" Lane, is an American physicist and senior fellow in science and technology policy at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy and Malcolm Gillis University Professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy Emeritus at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of education policy or curriculum choices in schools. It has implications for workforce development, national security concerns, and immigration policy, with regard to admitting foreign students and tech workers.
Carlos Castillo-Chavez is a Mexican-American mathematician who was Regents Professor and Joaquín Bustoz Jr. Professor of Mathematical Biology at Arizona State University. Castillo-Chavez was founder and the Executive Director of the Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Institute (MTBI) and the Institute for Strengthening the Understanding of Mathematics and Science. For 2019, Castillo-Chavez was Provost Visiting Professor in the Applied Mathematics Division and Data Science Initiative at Brown University. Castillo-Chavez retired from Arizona State University at the end of spring 2020.
Amy Burns Ellis is a Full Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Science Education at the University of Georgia. She was formerly an associate professor in mathematics education in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Joan Ferrini-Mundy is a mathematics educator. Her research interests include calculus teaching and learning, mathematics teacher learning, and STEM education policy. She is currently the president of the University of Maine.
Tasha Rose Inniss is an American mathematician and the director of education and industry outreach for the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).
Aissa Wade is a Professor of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University. She was the President of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences centre in Senegal.
Georgia Perakis is a Greek-American operations researcher and the William F. Pounds Professor of Operations Research and Operations Management at the Sloan School of Management, Associate Dean of Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing at the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, and Codirector of the MIT Operations Research Center Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her research is primarily in the areas of dynamic pricing, revenue management and inventory control. In 2016, she was elected as a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), in recognition of her lifetime achievement in "variational inequalities, the price of anarchy, dynamic pricing and data analytics," and her "dedicated mentorship of a future generation of OR scholars."
Nina Matheny Roscher (1938—2001) was an American chemist and advocate for women and minorities in science. She also researched the history of women in chemistry, publishing the book Women Chemists (1995). She served as professor and chair of the chemistry department at American University in Washington, D.C. She received the ACS Award for Encouraging Women into Careers in the Chemical Sciences (1996) and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (1998).
Brittany Michelle Friedman is an American sociologist focusing on criminology, racial inequality, and incarceration. She is currently Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California and faculty affiliate of the Sol Price Center for Social Innovation and the Equity Research Institute. Her research intersects at the sociology of law, sociology of race, economic sociology, and criminal justice. Friedman is most known for her research on the Black Guerilla Family and the black power movement behind bars, and the financialization of the criminal legal system. She is an outspoken proponent of criminal justice reform and a frequent commentator on public media outlets. Her most notable project is a book manuscript tracing the relationship between the rise of the Black Guerilla Family in California, institutional logics, and racial oppression. Separate work includes studies of monetary sanctions in the criminal legal system and policies such as pay-to-stay.
Rae Marie Robertson-Anderson is an American biophysicist who is Associate Professor at the University of San Diego. She works on soft matter physics and is particularly interested in the transport and molecular mechanics of biopolymer networks. Robertson-Anderson is a member of the Council on Undergraduate Research.
Willie Pearson Jr. is an American sociologist, who has studied and encouraged the participation of African-Americans and other minorities, as well as women, in science. He has published several books on the experience of African-American scientists with PhDs, including major studies on chemists and engineers. Pearson has had a leading role in many activities and policy development roles in relation to the participation of minorities and women in science, including chairing the Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering (CEOSE), a congressionally mandated committee at the National Science Foundation (NSF). He served on the U.S. president's Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Rosalyn W. Berne is an American scholar, author, and the Anne Shirley Carter Olsson Professor of Applied Ethics at the University of Virginia. Her research focuses on ethics in engineering, science, nanotechnologies and engineering education. She currently serves as the director of the Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science.
Kaye Husbands Fealing is an American economist who is Dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech. She previously taught for 20 years at Williams College, served in several staff positions with the National Science Foundation, and chaired the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech. She is a former president of the National Economic Association.
Barbara Lynn Schneider is an American sociologist and education scholar. She is the John A. Hannah Chair and University Distinguished Professor in the College of Education and Department of Sociology at Michigan State University (MSU).
Joya Misra is Professor of Sociology and Public Policy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
