August 2021

President Joe Biden recently nominated Laurie Locascio, who serves as the Vice President for Research and as a professor within the Fischell Department of Bioengineering, as Under Secretary for Standards and Technology in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Locascio, if confirmed by the Senate, would lead the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal lab employing 3,400 scientists, engineers, and support staff.

During her tenure at UMD, Locascio oversaw the merger of research enterprises at the University of Maryland, College Park and University of Maryland, Baltimore, resulting in a combined effort that ranks 14th overall nationally in research and development spending and 8th among all public institutions, with combined expenditures of $1.1 billion, according to the National Science Foundation Higher Education Research and Development Survey. Read more about Locascio at Maryland Today.