Last week Dr. Arden Bement, Jr., Director of the National Science Foundation in the US, announced that at the end of his term he will be stepping down to lead Purdue University’s new Global Policy Research Institute. Bement was appointed to a six year term as the 12th director of the NSF by the second President Bush in 2004.
During Bement’s tenure as NSF director, he oversaw the foundation’s annual budget of more than $7 billion that supports the research and education of roughly 200,000 scientists, engineers, educators and students across the United States. As part of the White House’s American Competitiveness Initiative in 2006, he guided initiatives that supported the training of the U.S. work force to operate in a high-tech global economy.
House Research and Science Education Subcommittee Chairman Daniel Lipinski (D-IL) had this to say
“As Chairman of the Research and Science Education Subcommittee, which is responsible for the National Science Foundation, it was my privilege to work closely with Dr. Bement to improve and elevate the NSF. Dr. Bement never forgot either his engineering roots or his time in the Midwest. As an engineer, he could not see a problem without wanting to solve it, and he did a great deal to enhance America’s competitiveness and respond to our STEM education challenges. And as a Midwesterner, he did so with grace and soft-spoken but determined leadership. Our loss will be Purdue’s gain, and I wish Dr. Bement well in his return to academia.”
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