Spending Bills, NSF Social Science, Global Health Research
BU IN DC
Nahid Bhadelia of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy & Research joined the White House’s COVID-19 Response team as a senior policy advisor for global disease response.
Micaelah Morrill of Innovate@BU and Megan Sandel of the School of Medicine participated in a White House Hunger Summit Listening Session hosted by Congresswoman Ayanna Presley (D-MA) and Project Bread in East Boston on July 11th.
President Joe Biden nominated Martha Guzman (LAW ’92) to serve on the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts on July 13th.
HOUSE SPENDING PANEL APPROVES SCIENCE, STUDENT AID INCREASES
The House Appropriations Committee recently passed several spending bills which propose significant increases to federal research agencies and student aid for fiscal year 2023. The Committee proposed:
- National Institutes of Health: $47.5 billion, a 5.6% increase
- National Science Foundation: $9.6 billion, a 9% increase
- Department of Energy Office of Science: $8 billion, a 7% increase
- NASA Science: $7.9 billion, a 4% increase
- Department of Defense Basic Research: $2.6 billion, a 6% decrease
- Pell Grant maximum award: $7,395, a 7.3% increase
- National Endowment for the Humanities: $207 million, a 15% increase
- Advanced Research Projects Agency-Health: $2.75 billion, a 175% increase
The U.S. Senate has not begun consideration of its version of the spending bills. Lawmakers are not expected to reach agreement on the final bills prior to the October 1st start of the federal fiscal year and are likely to enact a continuing resolution to keep the government operating at current funding levels.
BUZZ BITS…
- The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that Dr. Kellina Craig-Henderson will serve as the next assistant director of the NSF Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate. Dr. Craig-Henderson has served as SBE’s interim director since January and has been with NSF for over 16 years. She previously served on the faculty at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) appointed Dr. Sarah Kapnick as NOAA’s next chief scientist. Dr. Kapnick previously served as senior climate scientist and sustainability strategist at J.P. Morgan after spending ten years at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
- On June 8th, the U.S. Department of Education announced that Dr. Jordan Matsudaira will serve as ED’s first chief economist. Dr. Matsudaira will conduct research to guide the Department’s policymaking and serve as a liaison to the education policy research community. He will also continue as ED’s deputy undersecretary for higher education. Matsudaira was previously an economist with Teachers College at Columbia University.
AGENCY NEWS YOU CAN USE
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has issued a request for information (RFI) seeking public input on how the agency can better promote equity in global health research. NIH is particularly interested in submissions that address the elements of successful collaborations with researchers in low and middle-income countries. Responses will be used to inform NIH’s practices and procedures for supporting global health research and are due by August 1st.