Front Denver
ACS national meeting in Denver draws 11,000 Initiatives in minority affairs and international activities and revamping of committees were among the top achievements of American Chemical Society governance bodies at ACS's 205th national meeting last week in Denver. Attendance at the meeting was about 11,000, surprisingly high in light of concerns about the depressed economy and calls for boycotting Colorado because of an anti-gay rights initiative passed in the state last November. The high attendance comes on the heels of record total attendance of 24,100 at last year's two national meetings. The meeting was big in other ways. More than 4900 technical papers were presented, and the exposition featured almost 210 companies displaying scientific products and services in about 350 booths. A highlight of the week's activities was the Health Awareness Fair, sponsored by ACS president Helen M. Free. Free says it provided attendees "an opportunity to learn about their general health as well as the importance of chemistry to health and wellness/' The fair featured several medical services, including basic blood chemistry tests; measurements of blood pressure, lung capacity, and strength; and some fun physical activities and healthy food samples. Among governance actions, the ACS Council and Board of Directors approved chartering the society's first international chemical sciences chapter— in Saudi Arabia, with headquarters in Dhahran. The council and board also voted to create a Joint Board-Council Committee on Minority Affairs to oversee ACS programs devoted or related to minority issues. In addition, the new committee will develop a long-range plan to ensure increased participation of minorities in the chemical profession and in ACS. The council set 1994 membership dues at $96—up $3.00 from this year. And it selected two candidates for 1994 president-elect from a slate of four proposed nominees. The two candidates are Brian M. Rushton, senior vice president
Attendees take medical tests at ACS meeting's Health Awareness Fair for R&D at Air Products & Chemicals, AUentown, Pa.; and Henry F. Whalen Jr., corporate vice president and director of corporate development for PQ Corp., Valley Forge, Pa. The other two proposed nominees were Clara D. Craver and Bryant W. Rossiter. Seven petitions were submitted to amend ACS bylaws. The council adopted four, defeated two, and recommitted one. Councilors narrowly approved creation of a new Council Standing Committee on Economic & Professional Affairs. It will combine the activities of the Joint Board-Council Committee on Economic Status (CES) and the Council Standing Committee on Professional Re lations. In adopting this proposal, councilors rejected a petition to change CES's status to that of a standing council committee. Councilors also approved changing the status of the Society Committee on Chemical Abstracts Service to that of a joint board-council committee, in view of the mission of the recently created CAS Governing Board. And councilors defeated proposals to establish a new Society Committee on Minorities, Women & Younger Chemists, and a new Society Committee on Bachelor-Level Chemists. The council agreed to offer all bachelor-level chemistry graduates—not just graduating student affiliates, as is done now—a half-year's waiver of ACS membership dues. The aim is to attract larger numbers of new chemistry graduates to ACS. But councilors recommitted a petition to revise, reorder, and simplify the bylaw subsection on membership requirements. The council approved an increase in the allotments the society pays to local sections and divisions for recruiting
new (or renewed) ACS members. The new policy allows the council to set or adjust the allotments, rather than use the more complex current process of amending the bylaws. Councilors set the allotments at 10% of member dues for each new member, 5% of dues for each reinstated member, and 75% of dues for each new national affiliate. The ACS Board approved annual observance of National Chemistry Week (instead of every two years, as is done, now), and adopted 1994 subscription: rates for ACS journals and magazines. Member subscriptions will rise $1.00 for almost all publications, and nonmember prices will rise an average of $11. The board also established a task force to develop an international policy agenda for ACS, partly in response to calls for society help to chemists and science institutions in countries of the former Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe. Ernest Carpenter
New NIST director breaks traditions A couple of traditions were broken last week when the Clinton Administration nominated Arati (pronounced "Artie") Prabhakar as director of the National In-: stitute of Standards & Technology (NIST). She replaces John W. Lyons, currently the Commerce Department's acting undersecretary for technology. NIST—formerly the National Bureau of Standards (NBS)—has never been run by a woman in its 92-year history. And an incumbent director has never been replaced by an incoming Administration. APRIL 5,1993 C&EN
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NEWS OF THE WEEK Prabhakar, 34, an electrical engineer with a Ph.D. from California Jnstitute of Technology, currently is director of the microelectronics technology office at the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). She will take over an agency that anticipates explosive growth under the Clinton Administration. Its current budget of $384 million will rise to just over $500 million in fiscal 1994, then to $1.4 billion in 1997. The bulk of the increase will come from industrial competitiveness programs the Administration deems crucial for future economic growth. After Senate corifirmation, Prabhakar will head up an agency Lyons began to reshape after its mission was redefined by Congress in 1988. That year, Congress passed the Trade & Competitiveness Act that gave NBS its new name and established two new programs of direct support to industrial competitiveness. One was the Advanced Technology Program (ATP), modeled after a highly touted Japanese grant program of support for key industrial technologies. The other was to promote manufacturing research centers in universities. Both are slated for vast increases by Clinton, along with a nationwide network of manufacturing extension centers inspired by the Department of Agriculture's research extension system. Those programs supplement NIST's core generic technology and basic research work, which are the foundation for its standards and measurement mission. Prabhakar was unavailable for comment. But the mood at NIST is cautious, even apprehensive, about a total stranger with no large-laboratory-management experience taking over such a traditionbound, familial organization. Another concern is that the emphasis at NIST on technology applications will erode the institute's basic standards and measurement mission and lead to a decline in its scientific competence. A 1992 National Academy of Sciences assessment of NIST says the agency's standard reference data, standard reference materials, and calibration services programs already are losing out to expansion in other, less basic, programs. Some of the staff at the Chemical Sciences & Technology Laboratory, the report adds, "fear that their traditional competencies are no longer recognized or appreciated." But NIST's staff also knows that with 8
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Prabhakar's appointment, the new NIST has arrived with a bang, and that the place needs to change. Millions of dollars of technology applications money is going to be transferred from ARPA to NIST to pursue what is called "dual-use" (civilian-cum-military) applications. Prabhakar is seen by her supporters as a whiz at both management and insight in high-technology applications programs. David Cheney, who follows technology issues for the Council on Competitiveness in Washington, D.C., says, "Some people might be uneasy about Prabhakar's appointment. But someone with her background is clearly what the Administration wanted. ARPA's managers have been trained to look for technological opportunities and nurture them. So they wanted to find someone for NIST who could identify high-payoff technologies and pursue them." Lewis M. Branscomb, director of the science and public policy program at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, was NBS director during the early 1970s before becoming chief scientist at IBM. "What makes me kind of sad," he says, "is that they didn't leave Lyons as director of NIST and ere ate a new agency to run the ATP, manufacturing centers, and extension programs. Dividing the jobs up would have been the thing to do." Wil Lepkowski
Refocusing of research on global change urged Refocusing of the U.S. research program on global change was urged at two Congressional hearings last week. The program needs to expand beyond its current focus on hard science to include issues such as the impacts of climate change and how to adapt to them, said John H. Gibbons, President Bill Clinton's science adviser, at a hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources. And later that day, a panel of scientists told the House Committee on Science, Space & Technology's Subcommittee on Space that crucial questions concerning climate change and ozone depletion remain unanswered and need more attention. The global-change program is an in-
teragency effort aimed at better understanding of environmental issues such as climate warming and ozone depletion. Its $1.3 billion budget for fiscal 1993 is spread among 11 federal agencies, with the National Aeronautics & Space Administration claiming more than half for the study of Earth from space. The two hearings focused on whether the program is on the right track. Gibbons stresses that there are big gaps in the research program. He says the U.S. needs to expand research on the effects of global change, including its impacts on human health. The program also should explicitly address issues of biodiversity, forests, desertification, and land degradation, he adds. "We need to know more about potential mitigation and adaption strategies to help us face the inevitable changes," Gibbons told the Senate committee. "We have to better integrate research with policymaking. Policy has to respond to new research results." At the House hearing, Daniel L. Albritton, director of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's aeronomy laboratory, testified that most climate scientists agree with the predictions of current climate models that increases in greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide will lead to a warmer Earth. But current models cannot predict the climate of a particular region or year, he emphasizes. More research on clouds and the oceans could help climate scientists give policymakers the detailed predictions they need to make difficult decisions. Atmospheric chemists have determined how chlorofluorocarbons cause the Antarctic ozone hole, points out Harvard University chemistry professor James G. Anderson. "What we don't know is why ozone is thinning over our heads in the Northern Hemisphere." Anderson emphasizes that the globalchange program needs a better balance between large, expensive, space-based monitoring projects and smaller, more flexible research projects designed to attack mechanistic questions in detail. For example, he tells C&EN, key questions—such as ozone loss and cloud-radiative feedbacks—could be addressed if remotely piloted aircraft and a new generation of lightweight instruments were adequately funded. Pamela Zurer
