By Ben Kallen
SIAM’s Washington liaisons have been actively engaging with both President Trump’s administration and Congress on emerging federal priorities—including new fields of research—through responses to various requests for information (RFIs). Such efforts alert federal audiences to the vital role of applied mathematicians and computational scientists in driving advances in critical and societally relevant areas of science and technology. Individual efforts focused on White House initiatives for strategic computing and the bioeconomy, as well as the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.
National Strategic Computing Initiative
SIAM offered recommendations to the White House to inform the administration’s attempts to update the National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI), which guides federal investments in supercomputing. SIAM provided this input in response to an RFI from the White House in July 2019 to inform changes to NSCI objectives. SIAM recommended strengthening the NSCI by addressing specific research and workforce gaps. Central to SIAM’s RFI feedback was the premise that the health and vitality of the entire strategic computing ecosystem depends not only on the speed and availability of supercomputing systems, but also on the foundational research advancements generated by the applied mathematics and computational science communities. SIAM’s comments also contended that an updated NSCI must support a workforce development pipeline that expands opportunities for students and early career researchers; this would strive to meet the national need for scientists and software developers capable of devising modeling and simulation methods tailored to exploit forthcoming computing systems.
Bioeconomy
The White House issued an additional RFI requesting input on ways in which the federal government can support the burgeoning bioeconomy. The administration described the bioeconomy as “the infrastructure, innovation, products, technology, and data derived from biologically-related processes and science that drive economic growth, promote health, and increase public benefit.” In its response, SIAM provided detailed descriptions of the role that mathematics, modeling, and computational sciences can play in this area. The reply specifically discussed the importance of predictive science and the integration of data into all aspects of biological research, including biomedical and agriculture applications. SIAM’s comments also included structural suggestions such as comprehensive data initiatives (especially in biomedical research), transparent science and results enabled by supporting the value of scientific publications and intellectual property, and data sharing across agencies to accelerate scientific breakthroughs.
Mitigating Against Climate Change
In October, the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis released an RFI soliciting ideas for future recommendation policies that Congress can pursue to address the climate crisis. SIAM highlighted the role of modeling in predicting the effects of climate change and effectively mitigating damaging outcomes. For example, the Dutch government used modeling and simulation to dictate precise modifications to the country’s seaside dikes in order to prevent flooding. This targeted approach improved infrastructure resilience to climate change and saved billions of euros. SIAM also considered cross-cutting issues like power grid optimization, computational design of sustainable and long-lasting materials, and potential models of climate change’s impact on human health. The American Mathematical Society signed onto this response, thus helping to expand its support base.
SIAM’s feedback to these RFIs open potential new avenues for engagement with policymakers and novel opportunities for the society to ensure that its priorities are included in broader discussions of science and engineering policy. For instance, the SIAM Committee on Science Policy met this past fall—following the submission of SIAM’s reply to the bioeconomy RFI—with the official leading bioeconomy efforts at the White House.
Ben Kallen is a government relations associate at Lewis-Burke Associates LLC.