The National Science Foundation is seeking qualified candidates for an Interdisciplinary (Program Director) position for the Communications, Circuits, and Sensing-Systems (CCSS) program within the Directorate of Engineering (ENG), Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS) in Alexandria, VA. For more information on ECCS please click here. For more information on ENG please click here.
Candidates must have a Ph.D. in an Engineering, Physics, Mathematics, or Computer Science field plus after award of the Ph.D., six or more years of successful research, research administration, and/or managerial experience pertinent to the position.
The Communications, Circuits, and Sensing-Systems (CCSS) Program supports innovative research in circuit and system hardware and signal processing techniques. CCSS also supports system and network architectures for communications and sensing to enable the next-generation cyber-physical systems (CPS) that leverage computation, communication, and sensing integrated with physical domains. CCSS invests in micro- and nano-electromechanical systems, physical, chemical, and biological sensing systems, neurotechnologies, and high-speed communication & sensing circuits and systems for a variety of application domains including healthcare, biomedicine, communications, disaster mitigation, homeland security, intelligent transportation, manufacturing, energy, and smart buildings. CCSS encourages research proposals based on emerging technologies and applications for communications and sensing such as high-speed communications of terabits per second and beyond, sensing and imaging covering microwave to terahertz frequencies, personalized health monitoring, secured wireless connectivity and sensing for the Internet of Things (IoT), and dynamic-data-enabled autonomous systems through real-time sensing and learning. The responsibilities of the NSF Program Director are constantly evolving. The program Director is guided by the goals of NSF's Strategic Plan: (1) enable the United States to uphold a position of world leadership in all aspects of science, mathematics, and engineering, (2) promote the discovery, integration, dissemination, and employment of new knowledge in service to society, and (3) achieve excellence in U.S. science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education at all levels. The core strategies NSF staff employ include developing intellectual capital, strengthening the physical infrastructure, integrating research and education, and promoting partnerships. Responsibilities of the program Director include, for example, long-range planning and budget development for the areas of science represented by the program or program cluster, the administration of the merit review process and proposal recommendations, the preparation of press releases, feature articles and material describing advances in the research supported, and coordination and liaison with other programs in NSF, other Federal agencies and organizations. MAJOR DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES PROGRAM PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT Maintain a healthy balance of support for all the needs of the research and education enterprise either through program, division; directorate, Foundation, or interagency activities. Manage program resources to provide optimal appropriate scientific judgment to ensure integrity and consistency in the grant/declination process without conflict of interests, and with balance among appropriate sub-fields and institutions, and participation of all qualified scientists. Incorporate cross-directorate responsibilities into program administration. Manage an effective, timely merit review process, with attention to increasing the size and quality of the reviewer pools and insuring participation by women, minorities and disabled scientists. Provide scientific expertise, evaluation and advice for other programs in NSF, including international programs, other research programs, and cross-directorate programs. Advise and assist in the development of short- and long-range plans, establishing goals and objectives for research programs. Plan the budget for the program considering past, present and future fiscal years, allocate resources within that budget distributing scarce resources among major competitive programs, and manage post-award evaluation. Control waste, fraud and abuse. REPRESENTATION, COMMUNICATION AND LEADERSHIP Represent the Program, Division and Foundation within the scientific community, with other NSF Divisions, with other appropriate agencies and organizations, and with the public, accurately reflecting NSF policy and positions. Pursue affirmative action and EEO goals. Pursue and/or be responsive to assignment on special projects and temporary functional teams from across the Foundation to solve problems, improve staff communication, and effect coordination for special programs. Contribute ideas and effort to improving the quality of policies and NSF's performance of the overall mission. Develop policies and plans for strengthening research and education programs. Provide information to the community on how NSF is pursuing its mission and gather data and impressions from the community on the effectiveness of NSF's performance of its mission. Prepare and disseminate a variety of informational documents which may include data on progress being made toward NSF's goals, trends and opportunities papers, and budget plans.