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4
Summary of Panel Sessions
PANEL 1: EMERGING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE NEXT 15 YEARS
Question to Be Addressed
Identify emerging science and technology that could significantly impact the STEM workforce needs of the
DOD and its defense contractors over the next 15 years.
Summary of Lead-off Presentations
Donald Burke, dean of the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, gave his presenta -
tion from the point of view of the life sciences. He went over the DOD priorities list for high-priority science and
technology areas,1 noting where these areas touch on the life sciences. He discussed the various spatial and tem -
poral scales on which biological systems operate (see Figure 4-1), noting the tendency to focus on the small scale.
In surveying the emerging S&T, Burke first turned to the area of nanoscience, noting that this is a maturing
field that has been in existence for 20 years and has several prominent dedicated journals, notably Nature Nano-
technology. Some of the applications to life sciences have included the development of new vaccines, and there
is potential for new technologies for their delivery. These latter technologies could include intradermal injections
to deliver to specific cells. Burke then turned to synthetic biology and the idea of using cells as programmable
entities. This is an engineering discipline that has been applied to the development of antimalarial drugs through
the creation of novel compounds. He then discussed cognitive neuroscience, referring to a recent NRC report on
the subject, and took note of “neurophysiological advances in detecting and measuring indicators of psychological
states and intentions of individuals.”2
Burke then turned to the subject of STEM at scales larger than a human being. He noted that there are popula -
tion health problems—obesity, drug addiction, violence, and mental health—that have directly impacted military
1Secretary of Defense William Gates. April 19, 2011. Memorandum for Secretaries of the Military Departments; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff; Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics; Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering;
Directors of the Defense Agencies: Science and Technology (S&T) Priorities for Fiscal Years 2013-2017 Planning. Washington, D.C.
2National Research Council. 2008. Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies
Press.
12
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13
SUMMARY OF PANEL SESSIONS
Scales of Health Science Research
Population
Health:
Behavior
Meters (log 10)
Clinical
Medicine
Cognitive
Neuroscience
Synthetic
Biology
Nano Biology
Seconds (log 10) 1
FIGURE 4-1 Scales of health science research. SOURCE: Donald Burke. 2011. “Emerging Science and Technology in the
Life Sciences.” Presentation to the committee at the Workshop on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)
Workforce Needs for the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Defense Industrial Base, Arlington, Va., August 1.
recruiting. He gave examples of four novel programs at his home institution: (1) simulation using agent-based
models of pandemic spread through the United States, (2) data acquisition and analysis of historical disease patterns,
(3) modeling of human health behaviors, and (4) measurement of population-level immunity. He discussed these
four in detail, touching on the methodologies and the challenges in accessing and analyzing the data. One note -
worthy example was the mining of the Department of Defense Serum Repository (Silver Spring, Maryland) of
50 million human serum specimens. In concluding his talk, Burke reiterated the theme of multiple scales, adding
that at higher levels of sociobehavioral analysis we are seeing a “data tsunami.”
Anthony Tether, president of the Sequoia Group, discussed the topic of emerging S&T in the next 15 years
from the perspective of his current work and his former service as the director of the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA). He offered a “baker’s dozen” of important technologies and explained the significance
of each to the DOD mission:
• Alternative energy. Alternative energy is critical because all U.S. wars are conducted offshore, and a modern
army moves on energy.
• Critical biological technologies. There is a need for timely, tailored therapeutic response capability.
• Cognitive computing and high-productivity computing systems. These systems could be used to simulate
operations and eliminate extensive experimentation.
• Laser systems. These systems are of perennial importance, dating back 40 years, and have multiple military
uses, from sensing to communication to electronic warfare to target designation.
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14 STEM WORKFORCE NEEDS FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE U.S. DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL BASE
• The ability to manufacture very quickly. This capability makes possible the response to unanticipated situ-
ations like wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Structural, functional, and smart materials. Many fundamental changes in warfighting capabilities have
sprung from new or improved materials.
• Mathematics. There continues to be value in supporting very intuitive people who are able to identify pat -
terns in very complex data.
• Advances in microelectronics. Scientists will need to find a new way to continue Moore’s law using three-
dimensional constructs and will need to learn how to make monolithic analog-to-digital chips.
• Communication networks. The network may become more important than the node (e.g., the airplanes that
it supports).
• Quantum information science. It can be envisaged that this technology will have a major impact as scientists
learn to operate at atomic level and shrink our sensors.
• Real-time accurate language translation. U.S. forces do not necessarily understand the culture or the lan-
guage in the operational area, and so they need automated translators that are 95 percent accurate 95 percent
of time (i.e., equivalent to a level IV linguist). A translator system could be embedded in a helmet equipped
with a microphone and speakers. Although English is currently the preferred language globally, this may
not be the case much longer.
• Trustworthy integrated circuits (ICs). DARPA has only a couple of foundries in the United States; most
ICs are made offshore. Can we be sure that electronics manufactured abroad have nothing added or deleted
that would lead to a catastrophic failure?
In conclusion, Tether asked how we can ensure that tomorrow’s youth will learn S&T. He believes that the
result of such study must lead to something exciting, and proffered that one might change the 7th-, 8th-, and 9th-
grade syllabi to include reading one science fiction book per week. In interviewing job candidates, he commented,
he always looks for imagination.
Panel Discussion
The session then turned to the four members of Panel 1 who had been asked to prepare brief remarks on the
panel’s topic, emerging S&T in the next 15 years.
The first panelist was Thomas Russell, director of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, who began his
remarks noting an underlying theme: seeking to educate people who can solve challenging problems. He said that
academics are risk-averse and seek to ensure that research is successful even if it turns out that only the knowledge
benefit rather than a deployable technology is applicable to future work. He noted that in the Air Force, there are
six disruptive basic research areas identified in the “6.1” category (i.e., DOD-funded basic research): (1) engineered
materials, including metamaterials and plasmonics; (2) quantum information sciences, with applicability to cryp -
tological problems; (3) cognitive neuroscience; (4) nano science and engineering—although Russell conceded that
nanotechnology and nanobiology have been talked about for two decades; (5) synthetic biology—he pointed out
the importance for vaccine development of getting beyond the use of eggs and tobacco to produce them in order
to have a rapid-response capability; and (6) the modeling of human behavior. Russell noted that, although these
six areas are the ones that the Department has identified, in looking to the future one must not forget the past. He
gave the following as an example: in the Air Force, aerospace sciences will continue to be important; the future
is in autonomous systems in which the factor of trust will be paramount. Other areas of ongoing importance will
be information assurance, network sciences, and thermal sciences—important for energy sciences and electron-
phonon coupling. For the design of materials, there will be three-dimensional materials with n-dimensions in
functionality. He also touched on the question of how humans interact with machines. Fractionated systems must
be brought together, and we will require digital-based systems that are more generic. A question will be how to
couple quantum architectures and how to bring them together in real time.
The next panelist to present brief remarks was Lyle Schwartz, past chair of the ASM Materials Education Foun-
dation. This speaker decided against the approach of providing a list of critical technologies in favor of examining
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SUMMARY OF PANEL SESSIONS
a couple of technologies that in his view will be growing in importance at DOD; he also wanted to touch on some
aspects of the STEM workforce that are not included in traditional thinking on S&T. The first of the technologies
that he chose to focus on was robots, of which about 8,000 were in use in Iraq at the peak of the conflict. In future
conflicts, he said, we will see autonomous systems—for example, insect-size surveillance robots or land-mobile
robots teaming with soldiers. He noted that there will be a need for an increasingly sophisticated warfighter.
The second technology that Schwartz described involved materials requirements for applications such as
personnel protection or higher operating temperatures in engines. He noted that autonomous systems in particular
will benefit from functional materials that also provide energy storage. The implementation of computational tools
now reaching maturity will enable materials by design—that is, the materials genome. Within the materials field,
the most dramatic change will be in the implementation of computational materials. He commented that there is
a need for academia to integrate computation more fully into the engineer’s toolbox.
Schwartz next turned to a discussion of the more efficient energy sources needed to meet expanding equip -
ment loads. He noted that there are investments by DOD in energy, but that DOD will need to address warfighter
needs specifically: for example, autonomous systems run by batteries currently create logistics complexity, and
jet propellant 8 (JP8) fuel standardization creates problems for small-engine ignition.
Autonomous systems will require interdisciplinary and systems-organized research, Schwartz observed; it will
not be possible to maintain the necessary depth of expertise in just the DOD laboratories, but other government labo-
ratories and universities, including those abroad, should probably be accessible. We will need systems- organized
collaboration and more flexible communication with these other entities. He pointed to what he considered an
excellent model: the Army’s establishment of technology alliances. 3
Schwartz then discussed issues that will be critical to maintaining aging transport and attack vehicles, which
remain in use beyond their designed lifetimes. It is possible to upgrade such vehicles during the life-extension
process in order, for example, to decrease fuel costs. Reduced investment in traditional areas by DOD has led to
less academic attention to these topics; corrosion engineering, one of the major costs to DOD budgets, has all but
disappeared as a subject taught in engineering education. We will need a trained maintenance workforce, for which
community colleges will remain a critical element. DOD will continue to need a STEM workforce, ranging from
individuals who have vocational training to those with advanced degrees in the soft and hard sciences.
The next panelist to present brief remarks was John Sommerer, Space Sector head at the Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory. He began by commending to the workshop participants a Naval Research
Advisory Committee (NRAC) summer study from 2010.4 Sommerer expressed mixed feelings about lists and about
crowdsourcing, which, although it has a certain amount of convergence, tends to be market-driven. He presented
a list, noting that it was Navy-focused, from the NRAC report, in a two-parameter framework (supplier base and
customer base), to enable the Navy to maintain leadership in central areas while identifying the need for “agile
adoption” within a much larger enterprise. Within the two-parameter framework (see Figure 4-2), there are two
quadrants of interest: (1) “Most Navy control” and “Highest cost,” which quadrant is fragile because the govern -
ment takes end-to-end ownership of cost, governed by current acquisition policy; and (2) “Least Navy control”
and “Lowest cost,” which is the global marketplace. In the latter, it falls to DOD more and more to take advantage
of the global supplier base and customer base.
Sommerer then asked participants to consider that the United States makes up 5 percent of the global popula -
tion, or 10 percent if least-developed countries are excluded. Based on this calculation, one could posit that only
1 in 10 good ideas will emerge from the United States, underscoring that we must rely on agile adoption. Sommerer
noted that this paradigm is used by Apple, currently the most valuable brand in the high-tech universe, using
research to expand from its base as a boutique firm to overtake Microsoft. It is in the discovery arena, Sommerer
suggested, that we need to prepare the workforce to make its contribution and understand the unique value that it
has to national security. Referring to the NRAC report, he noted that the summer study also came up with a set of
agile-adoption areas. He offered that if he had to pick only two areas to add to an emerging S&T list, one addition
3Further information is available at http://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?page=93. Accessed October 17, 2011.
4Naval Research Advisory Committee. 2010. Status and Future of the Naval R&D Establishment. Available at www.nrac.navy.mil/
docs/2010_Summer_Study_Report.pdf. Accessed October 17, 2011.
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16 STEM WORKFORCE NEEDS FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE U.S. DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL BASE
Supplier Base
Other U.S. U.S. Rest-of-World
Navy only military Government Defense Suppliers Universities Industry
Most Navy control Least Navy control
Navy
Highest cost
only
Other U.S.
military
Customer Base
Corner: Vertical slice:
• Provides most security
U.S.
• Today’s acquisition is
Government
• But…expensive and fragile mostly here
U.S. Market
Lowest cost
Allies
Quadrant:
• Becoming more important and threatening
Global
• Requires new mechanisms to handle
Free
Market
FIGURE 4-2 Framework of technology development and deployment. SOURCE: Naval Research Advisory Committee. 2010.
Status and Future of the Naval R&D Establishment. Available at www.nrac.navy.mil/docs/2010_Summer_Study_Report.pdf.
would be applied neuroscience: the brain is not understood in terms of information processing even though there
are astounding feats of pattern recognition. One could envisage neurally controlled fighter planes. The other addi -
tion to the list of emerging S&T that he suggested was information systems assurance. If he were to add a third
and fourth, these would be materials and nanoscience.
In concluding, Sommerer stated that the real issue is not the list of technologies but the competitiveness of U.S.
students and universities. He observed that this competitiveness is imperiled as both citizens and non-citizens leave
academia to look for opportunities overseas. He suggested that the DOD intervention should be in policies that
drive technology development, commercialization, and globalization, and career paths for the STEM workforce.
With respect to the latter, he contends that the day of lifetime careers in government is over, and we will need to
figure out how to pull in an increasingly globalized workforce. Generation Y is easily bored, amenable to working
globally, and will move on if not kept engaged.
The fourth panel member was Leonard Buckley, technology division director at the Institute for Defense
Analyses. Commenting on the lists of technologies already discussed, he noted that, for materials, there is a need
to develop new dielectrics. He raised the matter of communication, which is an issue for STEM, offering as an
example that nuclear power is not bad and that the public needs to be educated on this subject. Buckley discussed
the modeling of complex systems, varying from weather to advanced aircraft to autonomous vehicles. S&T of
complex systems also includes the interplay across fields, including autonomous operations, cognitive science,
psychology, and the “creativity option”; creativity might not be desirable in a bus driver, but it may be key in
robotic operation. Buckley also discussed quantum effects, noting that there are not a lot of materials to work
with to build such systems. He noted that he was in broad agreement with list presented by Anthony Tether at the
start of the panel session.
The panelists having made their remarks, session moderator and committee member Frances Ligler posed
a few questions. Noting that the United States is facing the threat of terrorism and the build-up of sophisticated
paramilitary forces, she asked the panel what is needed to make this a safer world.
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SUMMARY OF PANEL SESSIONS
• John Sommerer suggested that this is not a technological problem and challenged the premise that we need
to engage militarily as broadly as we have. Information dominance is our strong point and our weak point;
we need to maintain good awareness with intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) without
compromising our ability to orient and observe. Sommerer expressed the view that we will need an appetite
and an infrastructure for ISR that are in good match, but at the present time the former exceeds the latter.
• Thomas Russell noted that sociobehavioral work centers on the question, what does it mean to influence?
Sociobehavioral experiments generally evaluate influence based on some action during a specific scenario,
not on the future outcomes. There has been minimal examination of what role DOD plays in the influence
process.
• Leonard Buckley added that the ability to influence is very important and that psychology is very important
and should be embraced more in DOD.
Ligler then posed the next question, commenting first that nanotechnology is an example of a field in which
analytical inventions produced by the hard sciences led to breakthroughs in materials and biomedical engineering
and will continue to do so for many years to come. Her question was, from what areas of S&T will the next major
game-changing technologies emerge?
• Sommerer reflected that although he was repulsed by the excessive hyping of nanotechnology in the
early days, the successes have proved otherwise. He noted that nanotechnology is an example in which
the research community went beyond the 6.1-to-6.3 pipeline (of DOD basic research to applied research
to development) and into the innovation web. Nonetheless, he stated the belief that there is a long way
for nanotechnology to go, and still to be addressed are very large systems integration (VLSI) and thermal
management. In addition, there is the breakdown of Moore’s law that many have envisaged.
• Schwartz noted that nanotechnology is the result of an evolutionary and continuous process: it is an exten-
sion of our understanding of solid state science. Now underway is the attempt to do something similar with
evolutionary activities in materials associated with computation.
The moderator then took questions from the floor. One participant noted that the workshop had generated
several lists of technologies that will be important over the next 10 or 20 years and asked where risk is actually
examined.
• Russell replied that in order to answer this, one would need to define risk. We often look at the transition
past the “valley of death” in innovation, which occurs after the basic science segment. This depends on
where the risk is: Does it entail risk to create a capability? Is there innovation risk? Companies do not
invest in basic research because they need a 5-year return on investment. One might conclude from this
that basic science is high-risk.
• Sommerer noted that we are asking STEM personnel to do a game-theoretic assessment in order to deter-
mine which field to go into—and that assessment, moreover, is based on what fields DOD will fund in the
future. The most important output of 6.1 investment is human capital.
Another participant asked if DOD can really predict the top technology in the next 15 years.
• Sommerer noted that hard problems can engender a lot of good results—for example, the steam engine had
huge benefits for physics. He suggested that the interfaces between existing disciplines will be the source
of the most interesting developments.
The session moderator then asked, with regard to systems thinking, if the panel could foresee any fields of
endeavor emerging that might enable this systems focus from smallest component to largest assemblages.
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18 STEM WORKFORCE NEEDS FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE U.S. DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL BASE
• Buckley suggested that we will need to think more about building systems thinking into the various cur-
ricula and some fundamental courses in that area.
• Schwartz reiterated his point about the technology alliances used by the Army. These are reviewing
specific areas of computational materials to create a systems effort that does not involve just individual
DOD laboratories but the group of them collectively. The expertise cannot all be corralled in DOD. There
is global exchange occurring in academia very freely, but we can only access this if we can collectively
interact with it.
The participants asked the panel to state its number one area of S&T on which to focus.
• Russell suggested that we cannot focus on one area. He further noted that we are often trained in different
disciplines than the ones that we pursue in our careers.
• Sommerer noted that prospective members of the STEM workforce will need to graduate with a lot of
higher mathematics. The mathematics needed to practice physics for example has been around for 100 years
and is not the mathematics at the frontiers of research. People who leave college without a significant
armamentarium of higher mathematics will not be entering the STEM workforce.
Participants asked whether there is enough emphasis on just letting people discover things.
• Russell referred to Pasteur’s quadrant, in which one can have a basic science result when working on a
practical problem. Such a construct can support research that borders on Bohr’s quadrant (basic science
without a direct practical result) or Edison’s quadrant (research on a practical problem leading to a practical
result).5
• Sommerer agreed that it was good to ask whether all the emphasis should be on application and develop-
ment. He suggested that the decadal surveys that the NRC conducts of physics and astronomy are a good
model of a process to identify key areas for research amid competition. He noted that such a Delphic model
can identify the grand challenges. Another example is the 20 questions to mathematics posed by David
Hilbert circa 1900. Sommerer underscored the need to get away from the limitations posed by the question,
“What have you done for me lately?”
• Schwartz noted that diversity presents a funding opportunity: there are extensive opportunities to broaden
the spectrum. He emphasized that DOD is a small player in funding for academia—smaller than it was
years ago. Schwartz noted there are activities in which DOD is the only source of funding: here you want
to encourage free thinking in addition to development for a DOD-specific need. He further noted that there
are also broad areas of S&T, the responsibility for which is shared across various government agencies
among which DOD is a small player.
Ligler then asked if we can conceive of defense as a technology intended to bring more benefits to humans
rather than destroying them.
• Sommerer answered that security depends on well-being. It is our economy that led to our century of
preeminence.
PANEL 2: ESTIMATING STEM WORKFORCE NEEDS UNDER FUTURE SCENARIOS
Question to Be Addressed
Estimate the STEM workforce needs by number and field of the DOD and its defense contractors under each
of the following three budget scenarios:
5D.E. Stokes. 1997. Pasteur’s Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
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SUMMARY OF PANEL SESSIONS
a. The current 5-year defense budget continues under identical basic assumptions.
b. An abrupt change in security threats calls for an abrupt 35 percent DOD budget increase over that in
(a) above.
c. A peace dividend calls for reallocating 25 percent of the DOD budget in (a) to other national needs.
Summary of Lead-off Presentation
Rolf Lehming, director of NSF’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) introduced
the topic of Panel 2—estimating STEM workforce needs under future scenarios—with his presentation on back -
ground data relevant to the STEM workforce needs of DOD. He began by acknowledging the use of the Defense
Manpower Data Center (DMDC) and stated that he would be giving a brief sketch of the civilian side of DOD,
including data by major job title (Figure 4-3).
Lehming noted that NASA is the largest STEM employer in the federal government. He then discussed the
trends in STEM employment in the federal government, such as the trends in minority employment. Here he noted
that the ability to attract STEM workers from minority populations will be an ongoing focus; he mentioned that
DOD is doing a commendable job of recruiting minorities vis-à-vis the percentage in the population.
Lehming then presented a historical look over the 1999-2009 period at the number of science and engineering
bachelor’s degrees by broad field (e.g., engineering). Temporary-visa holders are a small portion of these. He noted
that Asian Americans have more than a pro rata number of natural science and engineering degrees. (NS&E in this
presentation includes the three basic sciences, but also ocean and Earth sciences as well as information technology
[IT]; it does not include psychology or social sciences.) Temporary-visa holders account for 5 percent of such
degrees in the life sciences and 25 percent overall. In summary, Lehming stated that DOD is a major employer
FIGURE 4-3 Department of Defense science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce employment by
major job title: 1999-2009. SOURCE: National Science Foundation/National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics,
special tabulations (2011) from data provided by the Office of Personnel Management and the Defense Manpower Data Center.
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20 STEM WORKFORCE NEEDS FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE U.S. DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL BASE
of STEM, especially in the field of IT. Looking at the level of educational attainment, there has been a modest
increase in engineering and physical sciences bachelor’s degrees. Blacks and Hispanics earn NS&E degrees in
percentages well below their population shares. At the doctoral level, one-third of doctorates of NS&E are earned
by temporary-visa holders.
A few questions were asked after the presentation was concluded. One participant asked about the decrease
in temporary-visa holders and whether this was related to difficulties with obtaining such visas that were observed
6 or 7 years ago.
• Lehming noted that admittances of persons with student visas dropped slightly after 2000, but the 7 years
allowed for getting the degree could explain what one sees in terms of a drop.
A follow-up questioner asked if there were country data showing where the temporary-visa holders are from.
• Lehming indicated that most were from China, India, and Japan and that, further, only a very few were
from countries that might be termed “unfriendly.”
• In response to another question that sought clarification on what specifically was included in IT, Lehming
noted that this includes all hardware and system components.
Panel Discussion
Session moderator and committee member Anita Jones thanked Rolf Lehming for his presentation and noted
the value of the biennial science and engineering indicators report. Then the four members of Panel 2 who had
been asked to prepare brief remarks presented their comments on the panel’s topic of estimating STEM workforce
needs under future scenarios.
The first panelist, committee member Leif Peterson, managing partner at Advanced HR Concepts and Solutions,
LLC, was asked to provide a brief review of selected, previous Air Force studies regarding STEM workforce issues.
He went back 10 years, beginning with the USAF Scientist and Engineer Future Study of 2002.6 His presentation
included the National Defense University review in 20087 and the National Research Council STEM workforce
study8 published in 2010. He concluded by giving an overview of Bright Horizons: The Air Force STEM Strategic
Roadmap (2011) and the Senate Report to Accompany S. 1253, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)
for Fiscal Year 2012 (Report 111-26).9
The USAF Future Study established the first-ever S&E projections of 2010, 2015, and 2025. It defined the
tools used to establish the projections, derived workforce trends, and identified current and emerging technical
degree profiles. It concluded that in order to manage a workforce with acceptable risk, the Air Force needed to
man to authorized levels with the right skills. Peterson went on to identify future technology areas that would
drive a shift toward academic degrees in the following major areas: directed energy (e.g., electrical engineering),
space vehicles (e.g., astronautical engineering), information technology (e.g., computer science), and human fac -
tors (e.g., behavioral science).
In July 2008 the National Defense University review arrived at three key conclusions: (1) future S&T efforts
in DOD would be in competition for funding with other federal outlays (e.g., Medicare, the national debt, and so
on); (2) it is critical that the DOD S&T workforce have the ability to renew itself and develop effective leaders
who can maintain advocacy for new S&T initiatives; and (3) DOD should be aware of the implications of the S&T
“shadow workforce” (i.e., non-organic personnel such as contractors).
6U.S. Air Force. 2002. USAF Scientist and Engineer Future Study. Washington, D.C.
7Timothy Coffey. 2008. Building the S&E Workforce of 2040, Challenges Facing the Department of Defense . July. Washington, D.C.: Center
for Technology and National Security Policy, National Defense University.
8National Research Council. 2010. Examination of the U.S. Air Force’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Work -
force Needs in the Future and Its Strategy to Meet Those Needs. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press.
9U.S. Senate. 2011. Report to Accompany S. 1253, National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012. Report 111-26. Wash-
ington, D.C., June 22, p. 171.
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SUMMARY OF PANEL SESSIONS
Peterson stated that in 2010 the National Research Council completed its study of the current and future STEM
needs of the Air Force.10 He discussed a few of the 25 recommendations (e.g., conduct a current and future man-
power STEM requirements review, define STEM, among others) that were incorporated into the Air Force’s strategic
roadmap Bright Horizons. This effort by the Air Force was recognized in the NDAA for FY 2012.
The next panelist to make a brief presentation was Assistant Commissioner of Labor Statistics at the Depart -
ment of Labor Dixie Sommers, who explained that she would present some of the data that the Bureau of Labor
Statistics has about STEM occupations and where the data come from. BLS uses the Standard Occupational
Classifications (SOCs) approved by the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regula -
tory Affairs. Qualifications generally are not used. There are 23 major groups; one example is life, physical, and
social science occupations. Sommers then posed a question about STEM vis-à-vis SOCs, noting that her office
recently published a visual essay11 on this topic: an open question is whether STEM should not include fields in
the social sciences, health, or teaching. Sommers further noted that BLS surveys more than 1 million businesses in
a 3-year period and publishes these data for the country as a whole, once a year, in May. Further, BLS carries out
employment projections looking prospectively 10 years; these are updated every other year. BLS also produces the
Occupational Outlook Handbook (see www.bls.gov/oco/), which is the most widely used compendium of its kind.
The next panelist to speak was John Fischer, director of the Defense Laboratory Office within ASD(R&E),
who provided an overview of the DOD laboratories. The data from the Defense Manpower Data Center show that
in 2011, roughly one-third (approximately 37,000) of DOD’s scientists and engineers are in the DOD laboratories
(Figure 4-4). Fischer noted that the laboratories have lost people in electronics engineering as well as in operations
research, many of whom were trained at the Naval Postgraduate School. He provided data showing that, since
2008, the DOD laboratory S&E workforce has experienced a hiring resurgence in five prominent occupational
series, including general engineer (26.2 percent increase over 2008), mechanical engineer (7.8 percent), aerospace
engineer (10.6 percent), and electrical engineer (21.5), as well as chemistry (10.3 percent).
Fischer then turned to the question of what might be needed in the future. Some focal areas might include
cloud computing, cyber science and technology, quantum computing, smart grid, metamaterials, and synthetic
biology. These might have an impact on defense needs. He then discussed some challenges and possible solu -
tions, such as retirements and the gaps created by them, the new skill sets that will be needed, and the limited
resources. Fischer expressed the view that the current budget crunch will have a huge impact on the workforce. In
this context, retirements are not a concern owing to the eligibility requirements, inherent in the Federal Employee
Retirement System (FERS) and based on age and “creditable service,” which may act as a deterrent. This might
create an excess of persons who are close to retirement-eligible, leaving no vacancies to be filled by new hires.
Fischer discussed some solutions, citing the Section 219 authority of the National Defense Authorization Act of
2008 and the Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) scholarship program, through
which personnel receive educational benefits and then work for the DOD laboratories. Finally, he noted that DOD
looks at academia for research trends.
The final panelist for Panel 2 was Edward Swallow, the vice president of Business Development, Civil Sys -
tems, for Northrop Grumman Information Systems, and the chair of the STEM Workforce Division of the National
Defense Industrial Association (NDIA). Swallow began his remarks by noting that he had worked on this issue
being addressed by the workshop in 2004 and received a charge from then-Undersecretary of the Air Force Ron
Sega similar to the statement of task for the present study. For past 3 years, Aviation Week and Space Technology,
NDIA, and the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) have collaborated on an aerospace and defense (A&D)
industries-wide survey of STEM employment. Swallow enumerated three key points from the AIA and NDIA
data: (1) Budget variability does not correlate to industrial STEM employment, but it does correlate to program
shifts; the latter—for example, in the space shuttle main engine or the Joint Strike Fighter—are responsible for
changes. (2) Overall, the perfect storm has been postponed but not avoided. As others have noted, people are
10National Research Council. 2010. Examination of the U.S. Air Force’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Work -
force Needs in the Future and Its Strategy to Meet Those Needs. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press.
11Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2011. “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Occupations: A Visual Essay.” Monthly
Labor Review (May), pp. 3-15.
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22 STEM WORKFORCE NEEDS FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE U.S. DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL BASE
2008 2011
Scientists &Engineers Scientists &Engineers
DoD Lab Workforce in DoD
in DoD
DoD Lab Workforce
98,600 108,703
61,400 65,771
DoD Lab
DoD Lab
S&Es
S&Es
35,400
36,788
FIGURE 4-4 Scientists and engineers in the Department of Defense (DoD) workforce and in the DoD laboratory workforce,
2008 and 2011. SOURCE: John Fischer, Department of Defense, ASD(R&E).
postponing retirement because their 401(k)s have not performed. Looking at retirement, those who actually retire
versus those who are eligible to retire, there is a 10 percent rate of retirement. (3) Supply does not always meet
demand: there are open requisitions, defined as positions that remain open for 90 days or longer: systems engineer-
ing, for example, currently has more than 800 open.12 All of these are funded positions. Swallow also showed a
supply-chain model being developed by NDIA (see Figure 4-5). Responding to a question on shortfalls, he noted
that there was an excess of engineers and mathematicians due to the Apollo program. On the positive side, these
personnel were attracted to solving national issues through science and mathematics. This created a big supply
of labor, and these workers were able to solve other problems as well. The problem emerged in the mid-1990s as
the Apollo generation retired.
The members of Panel 2 having made their remarks, the session moderator Anita Jones asked the panel what
have been the most successful government interventions to grow the STEM workforce.
• Leif Peterson noted the importance of the Apollo program to growth of the STEM workforce in that it
provided inspiration.
With questions being opened to the floor, committee member Mary Good asked about the pool of people
who can be granted clearances and, given the numbers of persons graduating in engineering, where one will get
these clearable people. Further, she asked why Americans do not go to graduate school. She noted that many are
first-generation college students who will prefer to take a job that pays $62,000 per year rather than go to gradu -
ate school with a stipend of $18,000.
Another participant asked John Fischer a question related to the small numbers of significant advances in
technology initiated outside the academic sector. This is true now, but it was not so in the past—for example, with
Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and so forth. The participant asked whether
DOD laboratories can provide leadership at that level.
• John Fischer responded that the uniformed services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD)
could push the laboratories to serve in that role. The expected decline in budgets will shift demand toward
12C.R. Hedden. 2011. Aviation Week Workforce Study. Arlington, Va.: Aviation Week.
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34 STEM WORKFORCE NEEDS FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE U.S. DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL BASE
tract industry), who work broadly across all S&T areas and remain alert to emerging threats and opportunities.
For the Navy, identifying the important fields will be relatively simple: ocean acoustics is the hot topic. Gaffney
identified a problem, noting that these are disciplines that might not be picked up by industry, but that at the same
time Apple might know something about cybersecurity. He posed the question of how DOD should intervene. He
suggested that DOD should ensure that money goes to non-R-1 STEM education as such institutions graduate
half of the degrees and account for 57 percent of those seeking PhDs later on. He commented that DOD will be
well served if it also invests in undergraduate STEM research, not just in PhD graduate students, since exposure
to STEM research in the undergraduate years is a strong predictor of future STEM career pursuit. He also urged
consideration of the career reward potential for pursuing STEM.
Next he asked if academia has the capacity. In his view they do, although it could be improved, and he would
like to see stability in so-called 6.1 funding (of basic research) and a broadening of support beyond R-1 graduate
students. Lastly, he suggested that DOD may need to stimulate the supply, but he cautioned as previous speaker
Harold Salzman had that we do not want to hijack the workforce for defense needs.
The fourth panelist was S. James Gates, the John S. Toll Professor of Physics and the director of the Center for
String and Particle Theory at the University of Maryland, College Park. He explained that for his remarks he would
draw on his experience with the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) looking at
STEM in the K-12 system, including the report Prepare and Inspire.22 Of the latter’s recommendations, that on
the STEM master teacher corps has been accepted by the Administration, although a similar recommendation on the
creation of an advanced research projects agency for education, or “ARPA-Ed,” was not. He noted that there is
in preparation a second report to go to the White House, focused on the community colleges and 2-year colleges.
In the process of preparing these reports, it was learned that 32 percent of the STEM workforce is initiated in
community colleges and, further, the enrollment of minorities is heavily in such colleges. Gates suggested that if
we want a robust STEM workforce, we will need to pay attention to new areas.
Reviewing some OECD statistics, he noted that the United States ranks third overall, but when looking at
age cohorts the United States is in ninth place in the 25- to 34-years-of-age range. Continuing, he pointed to the
wage premiums for a college degree, which have increased from 30 percent in 1950 to 81 percent now; even dish -
washers get an 83 percent boost in pay from a college degree. Referring to the study entitled The Undereducated
American,23 Gates described an emerging skills pay gap in which the growth in demand for skilled labor by busi -
ness would continue to outpace growth in supply. He estimated that the fraction not met by the civilian education
enterprise might be as many as 1 million additional STEM workers by 2020, with an upper-bound estimate of
2.5 million (see Figure 4-9).
Gates next turned to the levers with which to change the department, the relevant unit of change at the univer-
sity. He referred to an appendix of the aforementioned PCAST report Prepare and Inspire that covered high-quality
studies of learning and noted that PCAST continues to look for appropriate models. 24 Referring to Carl Wieman’s
talk at the start of the panel session, he concurred that it is desirable to break the antivirtuous cycle—the split
between the research community and the schools of education. Gates suggested that there may be some disruptive
edges to be found, and he offered the example of Harrisburg University, which was created with input from the
business community to address a perceived shortage. In closing, Gates noted that in the military we do not leave
our people behind and suggested that we might instill this culture in education.
Session moderator and committee member Vice Admiral (ret.) Daniel Oliver, president of the Naval Postgraduate
School, noted that “the big hammer” that Assistant Secretary of Defense Lemnios possesses is the billions of dollars
that he invests, but asked the panelists what other hammers Lemnios might have.
22President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. 2010. Report to the President: Prepare and Inspire: K-12 Education in
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) for America’s Future. September. Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/
files/microsites/ostp/pcast-stemed-report.pdf. Accessed October 10, 2011.
23A.P. Carnevale and S.J. Rose. 2011. The Undereducated American. Available at http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/
undereducatedamerican.pdf. Accessed November 15, 2011.
24President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. 2010. Report to the President: Prepare and Inspire: K-12 Education in Sci -
ence, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) for America’s Future. September. Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/
microsites/ostp/pcast-stemed-report.pdf. Accessed October 10, 2011.
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35
SUMMARY OF PANEL SESSIONS
130
125
Skills-Pay Gap
120
115
110
relative supply of
105
college-educated workers
relative demand for
100
college-educated workers
current supply trend
2010-2025
95
proposed expansion of
college enrollment
90
85
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
2020
2025
FIGURE 4-9 Supply and demand with two paths forward to 2025. SOURCE: A.P. Carnevale and S.J. Rose. 2011. The Under-
educated American. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University.
• Paul Gaffney suggested that DOD needs to look at the hiring system and the personnel system. In addition,
he stressed that funding stability is wonderful and that it is much better to send a signal of say $100 million
for 10 years than the same cumulative total with fluctuations from year to year. Gaffney also noted the
value of undergraduates doing research and that peer-to-peer interaction is important. Lastly, he suggested
that internships in the laboratories at DOD should be encouraged.
• S. James Gates noted that the PCAST education report that is in progress asks this question. He stated
that this is the first administration to have raised STEM education to the level that it resides in the PCAST
standing portfolio. Gates suggested that Lemnios could similarly make such gestures to get the message
out.
• Wesley Harris noted that there were in fact three stakeholders: DOD and its industrial base, the education
community, and also the financial community. He asked why is it that Germany is able to maintain high-
tech manufacturing at a level we do not and suggested that this is likely not due to a lack of STEM training
but due to a lack of engagement with the financial sector.
• Katrina McFarland suggested that the issue is one of how we reward people at the country level. For indus-
try, the leadership was once engineers. Now it is chief financial officers, pointing to profit as the guiding
message. McFarland further suggested that we consider the message sent to our children by the cancellation
of the space shuttle program. Novels with an engineering theme are similarly uninspiring.
Oliver next discussed the rigidity of the higher-education system and asked the panelists to comment on what
drives this rigidity.
• Gates suggested that professors look at the path of least resistance when executing their teaching duties;
there is no incentive at R-1 universities on teaching. What are needed are tools for making a sustainable
change.
• Gaffney commented that the rigidity that he sees can be attributed to tenure and to professors’ being union-
ized. The professional education societies and discipline-specific accrediting organizations in Washington,
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36 STEM WORKFORCE NEEDS FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE U.S. DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL BASE
D.C., can further constrain the latitude for change. He noted that introducing undergraduate research can
change the culture of the student who learns to stand up and defend his or her work and who becomes a
better problem solver.
• Harris agreed that this was an important question in the context of R&D. Drawing on his experience at MIT,
he noted that change does occur and there are rewards for teaching; in the past 30 years he has seen the
importance of teaching move from being considered insignificant to the point at which it is now considered
in promotions. Harris suggested, however, that the economy would suffer greatly if we were to swing too
much toward teaching at R-1 universities at the expense of research and would result in some departments
being folded or merged.
• McFarland remarked that she was in a different position than are most university presidents in that she can
control the faculty, who are limited to terms of 4 years, resulting in the turnover of 120 of 700 last year.
She suggested that accreditation is a possible lever for change.
A participant referred to the U.S. News and World Report rankings which also drive culture and that do not
include teaching. Noting that DOD operates schools on bases, the participant asked whether DOD might not look
at what it does correctly there.
• Gates noted that he had attended schools on a military base from kindergarten through 5th grade and agreed
that this experience was beneficial: posts were very special places, sheltered as they were from the problems
experienced in the larger society. He suggested that there may be a correlation to what was going on with
the parents.
Another participant asked if there is a crucial age window for intervention.
• McFarland responded that DAU is teaming with 9th and 10th graders and disadvantaged schools that are
more open to new opportunities. She has observed an 80 percent attrition from STEM. She suggested that
interventions must go beyond policy and noted that “it takes a village”: it used to be that the neighborhood
helped children understand what is important.
One participant noted two factors worth considering: (1) State university budgets are being affected by budgetary
pressures. (2) Faculty receive a 9-month salary, which leaves a gap that they must fill by finding work. He contrasted
this with the German model, in which faculty at the national universities are supported 12 months of the year. Lastly,
he commented that the dichotomy of teaching versus research does not appear to be healthy for the future.
• Gates agreed that the research/teaching split is not healthy, as had been set forth in Carl Wieman’s talk. He
noted that there have been calls for an even sharper split, for example in Texas, with the idea, which has
become moot, of removing research from the University of Texas.
A participant noted that economics has become a popular major even while STEM has remained flat overall.
He posited that the increase in college wage premium was less due to STEM fields than to law, medicine, and so
forth. He asked the panel to comment on whether Lemnios does not already have tools, such as scholarships and
so forth, to strengthen STEM.
• Gates said that he had looked at curves of output of STEM versus non-STEM during the dot-com boom,
but those curves resumed normal shapes after the bust in 2000.
• McFarland remarked that wages are based on supply and demand. If the community is focused on short-
term return on investment, then this will be reflected in demand signal. Apple and Microsoft, for example,
are focused on cost. How does one create an environment that has a high payoff for research?
• Harris suggested looking to the financial sector and noted the lack of a conversation between DOD and
financial concerns.
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SUMMARY OF PANEL SESSIONS
• Gaffney, by way of illustration, posited two recent college graduates—one with a degree in artificial intel-
ligence and the other with a degree in aeronautical/astronautical engineering, both of whom go to work at
Goldman Sachs upon graduation. He further noted that 50 percent of chief executive officers of firms in
the S&P 500 have a background in STEM.
PANEL 5: ENSURING AN ADEQUATE WORKFORCE CAPABILITY IN AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
Question to Be Addressed
Given the unpredictability of: scientific and technological change; levels and trajectory of DOD budgets;
advancements and emerging threats; and the historical inadequacy of past projections of future workforce needs—
how can DOD ensure an adequate workforce capability for itself and its defense contractors in the future?
Summary of Lead-off Presentation
Ruth David, the president of ANSER, began her remarks explaining that the scope of her talk would not
encompass quantifying the workforce needs but would instead offer a framing of the issues that should enter into
any planning. What are these planning considerations? She observed that in looking at a number of documents
on what STEM is, there appears not to be a consensus. She suggested that we are in a fourth scientific paradigm,
e-science, reflecting the changing nature of scientific discovery, which in the future may entail moving from
hypothesis through discovery to data generation. Computational capacity and accessibility of information are
changing the nature of scientific discovery. Regardless of whether one believes that e-science is the way of the
future, one must understand that scientists are being impacted.
David discussed the trend toward convergence between disciplines and noted that computational- X fields
(where X is chemistry, physics, and so forth) are evolving and relating to themselves and to other disciplines. She
observed that convergence is reshaping products toward downloadable functionality. She also discussed “mash-
ups,” noting that one of Lemnios’s key areas for investment is data to decisions. One tool is to encourage these
mash-ups. There are also accelerators with all scientific data moving online; one could think of a pyramid with
peer-reviewed literature at the top, below which are derived and recombined data, and then raw data. Researchers
can stand on one another’s shoulders to accelerate. These accelerators will drive rates of change that DOD will have
trouble keeping up with. How will we tell if we are preeminent amidst this rate of change? Whether one operates
under a principal-investigator-centric model versus a multidisciplinary team will be important to understanding
results. This will have implications for behaviors as well and a different kind of skills. Referring to the report The
Engineer of 2020: Visions of Engineering in the New Century,25 David pointed out the need for teamwork and
collaboration skills. She also noted the split of systems engineers versus systems thinkers and that we will need the
latter who understand the soft systems aspects. A further dichotomy is that of engaged (connected to information
and people) versus controlled or isolated people. David observed in the context of cyber science and technology,
for example, that we know how integral the human is.
Next, David turned to the expectations for future STEM workers. She expressed the view that technologists
had worked behind the fortress walls to such an extent that they had lost touch with drivers in commercial markets;
purely defense technologies comprise a shrinking list. Referring to the challenges of needing to follow what is
happening worldwide and of being presented with too much information, David suggested that there is a new set
of skills needed that will allow people to cope with this; some domains will want to do their science but need
these new skills to explore their data. Disciplines that must be brought to bear include graphic design and human-
computer interface. She observed that the market for these skills is exploding, driven in large measure by the private
sector’s desire for business intelligence, and she commented that the competition for these new skills is quite fierce.
She pointed to the nature of the STEM enterprise changing to encompass metamaterial and presented a global
25NationalAcademy of Engineering. 2004. The Engineer of 2020: Visions of Engineering in the New Century. Washington, D.C.: The
National Academies Press.
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38 STEM WORKFORCE NEEDS FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE U.S. DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL BASE
geographic analysis of publication data from Scopus, noting an increasingly globalized distribution of activity, but
also rapid growth in certain regions of specific countries. She suggested that we need to understand these trends
as they manifest themselves overseas if we want to be preeminent as a country, but she cautioned that data tend
to be trailing indicators. She presented similar geographic data showing the globalization of autonomous systems.
Turning to an analysis of scientific trends, David noted the top-20 publishing cities in the time frame 2004 to
2008 and used this to calibrate the rate of growth as compared with that of the period 1996 to 2000. She observed
that the eastern seaboard had decreased or stayed constant but that Asia is growing (see Figure 4-10).
David continued with a discussion of publication quality, including a citation analysis comparing the same
4-year periods. She observed that the United States is doing very well despite dropping its market share and offered
the further caveat that the sample population is limited in this study because it does not include foreign-language
publications. The new entrant is China, with 4 percent.26
Resuming the theme of accelerators, David discussed collaboration, for example on scientific publications, and
the expanding global networks and presented analysis of the connection between collaboration across countries on
publication impact. Taking an integrating slant, she noted that the overall purpose of such analyses is to establish
the importance of tracking the numerous factors working together to change the environment fundamentally, which
DOD will need to evaluate.
In closing her remarks, David offered some provocative questions: Should STEM be redefined and expanded
to include the soft sciences, inter- and multidisciplinary fields, and computational- X? Further, how can we develop
and understand leading (versus trailing) indicators? How can we ensure that our STEM workers are web-savvy
in every dimension? She posed a question for the panel: Do we have the right bins to understand what the STEM
workforce is, given the changing environment? David then observed that in her view a better understanding of the
role of technology is needed in national security. The STEM workforce need not be PhD engineers but will need
a degree of literacy. She observed that we tend to bin people by their degrees, but this oversimplifies the complex -
ity of the kind of workforce that we need in the future. The bottom line, she contends, is that if we accept our
tasking to take inventory, then job codes are an inadequate characterization. We will need to look at credentials
versus experience; degrees rarely reflect proficiency. Systems engineers, for example, need to go through failure
to get the requisite experience. There is the dichotomy of personnel who are committed (to DOD and its mission)
versus personnel who are engaged (rapidly accessible as skills change). She suggested that we will never have the
right skills in-house. David noted that there are some barriers and that we are not driving innovation in the right
areas (e.g., IT, energy). In addition, there is competition with the private sector for a limited talent pool. The final
barrier is the challenge posed by the need for clearances and controls on the one hand and by the need for global
engagement on the other.
Session moderator Robert Hermann asked Ruth David if she could offer a model of how to address the point
on clearances and controls versus global engagement.
• In reply, David noted that one of the underlying causes of the STEM problem is the lack of appreciation
for who is doing what elsewhere. The sense in the national security community is that “we are ahead so we
must protect.” She adduced the example of deemed exports: studies of this have put forward the conclusion
that controls are a result of lack of awareness. She stressed that it will be critically important to develop
leading indicators and suggested that if presented with data, people will rationalize the environment.
Committee member Mary Good observed that the subject of the significance to STEM of the soft sciences has
been brought up a number of times and noted that we have a political climate that is trying to eliminate funding
for the soft sciences.
• David replied this is a serious problem and may be more challenging to solve than security.
26The Royal Society. 2011. Knowledge, Networks and Nations: Global Scientific Collaboration in the 21st Century. London: The Royal
Society.
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SUMMARY OF PANEL SESSIONS
FIGURE 4-10 Top 20 publishing cities, 2004-2008, and their growth since 1996-2000. SOURCE: The Royal Society. 2011.
Knowledge, Networks and Nations: Global Scientific Collaboration in the 21st Century. London: The Royal Society.
Committee member Daniel Hastings asked, with respect to global engagement, if there is not a model in which
the STEM workforce is updated and refreshed by being engaged globally.
• David replied that there are groups such as ONR Global, which has a global footprint with some singletons
in various countries in order to engage with the local technology base. She again stressed the importance
of collaborative projects.
A participant noted the difficulty posed by collaborative work in that it entails having to transfer knowledge
to a foreign entity and navigate through export controls.
• David stressed the need for export reform and suggested that research per se should be exempt from these
controls, understanding that there is a blurry line between research and development. She observed that
large research universities have collaborative programs with universities elsewhere or campuses elsewhere.
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40 STEM WORKFORCE NEEDS FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE U.S. DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL BASE
Panel Discussion
The session then proceeded to the brief talks by the four members of Panel 5 on the panel’s topic, ensuring
an adequate workforce capability in an uncertain future.
The first panelist was Vallen Emery, the outreach program manager at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory
(ARL). He began his remarks by noting the challenges that we face in STEM education and the concerns and
visions expressed by Assistant Secretary of Defense Lemnios. He referred to the DOD’s board of directors for
STEM and suggested that the output from the board has to give a cohesive strategy. Emery observed that DOD
has programs that it has been investing in for a long time and that there is a need to take a look at the outputs and
whether these have produced people who entered the STEM workforce.
He turned to the topic of opportunities for students, noting that ARL has about 300 people at the undergraduate
level who come in to ARL and are exposed to possible careers in STEM. This is critical from the standpoint that
as children they were exposed to PlayStations, but they do not understand the engineering behind them. Emery
noted there are statutory authorities that allow DOD to make equipment donations, for example, that facilitate their
having direct relationships with academia.
Next, Emery turned to the question of where and how DOD invests. He observed that the services (Army,
Air Force, and Navy) focus on technologies and not necessarily on the human capital responsible for them. He
suggested that there needs to be a policy document from DOD stating that the services are permitted to go on
high school and college campuses to show the depth and breadth of DOD research. He pointed to current Office
of Personnel Management (OPM) procedures, under which it takes a long time to bring someone into the organi -
zation. Emery also observed that the majority of the workforce does not have these skills, and many do not have
the graduate degree needed for senior positions. The refresh rate at DOD is sufficient because of the connection
to the academic partners. Referring to the discussion about clearances and controls versus globalization, Emery
stressed the need to incentivize the recruitment of students who can meet DOD employment criteria.
The next panelist was Jennifer Byrne, the vice president for corporate engineering and technology at Lockheed
Martin. She began her remarks noting that when she decided to become an engineer, she had originally thought
that she would go into research, but she wished that she could have seen today’s world of technology with quantum
computing, spacecraft, and so forth. Byrne noted that her job allows her to see research and development across the
company while at the same time funding university research. She observed that through technical interchanges with
universities, it has become clear to her that the composition of the classroom has not changed much in the United
States since the time when she was the only woman in the class. Byrne did observe, however, that internationally
there is a better mix, in India in particular, where females are encouraged to go into engineering and entrepreneurial
professions. She discussed the experience sponsoring the USA Science and Engineering Festival in September
2010 (and upcoming on April 27-29, 2012), which was held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. There they
wore shirts that said, “Ask me about being green,” indicating the wavelength for green in the electromagnetic
spectrum. Byrne also discussed the perception of science vis-à-vis the media and noted that Lockheed Martin is
an adviser on technology integration for the television series NCIS Los Angeles, whose producers want technology
to be a star of the show, and hold a biweekly teleconference with Lockheed Martin to receive background on the
technology. Byrne noted that working in India she observes that the engineering profession is held in high regard
by women engineers and entrepreneurs; she wondered what lessons this might hold for the United States. Byrne
observed that in the decade after she obtained her electrical engineering degree in 1990 there had been a steep
decline in the number of workers in aerospace and defense. She noted that Lockheed Martin has in its workforce
66,000 scientists and engineers and wants to see growth. Picking up on Ruth David’s remarks, in closing Byrne
commented that the future workforce would need to be both collaborative and super-smart.
Katherine McGrady, the chief operating officer of CNA, began her remarks as the fourth panelist noting
that at CNA about 70 percent of its employees have PhDs in STEM and extensive experience with STEM in the
field. McGrady explained that in preparing for the session, she spoke with people at CNA who have been dealing
with more recent technologies, like cyber, as well people from CNA’s business that trains DOD employees, both
uniformed and civilian. She noted that, like Vallen Emery, she wondered what we can do now as opposed to what
we can do in the long term. For example, CNA staff were not convinced that if the fiscal environment were one of
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SUMMARY OF PANEL SESSIONS
limited resources, one would want to increase the STEM skills of enlisted personnel: the high-tech in the battle -
field has nothing to do with the science. It would be better to put STEM money toward laboratories and defense
industry business lines. That said, McGrady acknowledged that some fields really demand STEM; submariners,
for example, really need this to operate the nuclear power plant on a carrier. Another point is that a recent study
by CNA on the Navy’s officer corps27 found that they were well prepared for their time in the warfare community
but not so well prepared for their later careers, in which critical thinking skills are needed. The latter, moreover,
are not the exclusive purview of scientists: having a STEM background may impart these skills, but many people
from other backgrounds can contribute as well. An example of the latter is the intelligence community, in which
staff collect and analyze a large volume of data, which involves judgment and awareness that do not necessarily
come from STEM. Another conclusion from CNA’s study was that a technical undergraduate education does not
appear to confer an advantage because of the training for new officers. Those with backgrounds in STEM were
retained and promoted at the same rates. McGrady then suggested that the leverage point for STEM is the defense
industrial base and the laboratories and that it is bigger than just the DOD workforce and noted the difficulty in
attracting people of high caliber who are graduating right now and of bringing them into the government; some
parts of the government can pay a huge salary, but they are few in number. In contrast, defense contracting does
seem to pay enough and is able to retain staff; they have incentives and, for example, allow off-ramps so that you
could have children and return to the job.
McGrady’s final point was that it is hard to interest people in the sciences, and the time window in which
you can affect this is at the high school level. In addition, it will be important to consider military technical train -
ing, which is 12 to 18 months long, and where all these people go and how this science is used on the battlefield.
The final panelist was David S.C. Chu, the president of the Institute for Defense Analyses. He began his
remarks by challenging the supply focus of the STEM discourse and suggested that the focus be on demand. He
observed that defense today is too small a fraction of the nation’s output to have a significant impact on supply;
it is still only 4.5 percent of GDP. He raised the questions of whether the compensation that we are paying is not
too modest, or too unexciting, or whether there are not simply barriers. With respect to the government workforce,
he expressed the opinion that the answer to all three questions is yes.
On compensation, he adduced the example from the national security personnel system of persons stranded
at the level of GM-15, Step 10. He noted that the laboratories and the acquisition workforce have demonstration
authority to set pay scales. There are other tools in the civil service tool kit and, for example, one can pay recruit -
ing and retention bonuses. The government still has experts who can be paid a salary of $200,000.
Chu then turned to the question of whether the compensation is unexciting, and he noted that DARPA has
successful contests for robotic vehicles or that Teach for America, which does not pay much or offer good working
conditions, is successful. He asked whether we might not want to have a “Science for America” program to try
and identify opportunities that would excite young Americans. Chu observed that there is no recruiting strategy
on the civilian side that is comparable to that of the uniformed side. He noted that to make prompt offers requires
direct-hire authority and that OPM has been sympathetic at granting this when a shortage can be identified. At
the same time, he observed, there are more pedestrian issues such as the need to write the job description better.
Turning to the question of the citizenship requirement for cleared work, Chu observed that 3.5 percent of
uniformed recruits are not U.S. citizens and that the law provides military accession for national security interests
similar to that used to recruit non-American scientists after the Second World War. Lastly, Chu discussed the issue
of minorities and women, which he adjudged to be a supply issue.
In conclusion, Chu offered several points, starting with the view that paying dollars on the supply side amounts
to paying rents, as this is paying people to do what they would have done in any case, or if not, the practice simply
displaces other funds. Next, he suggested that one size will not fit all: each domain is different, whether science,
engineering, or mathematics; with regard to the latter, DOD is a large source of demand. Third, and finally, Chu
observed that the field in which you start is not necessarily the one in which you apply your talent and that the
most significant contribution is from people who can think outside their fields.
27CNA. 2011. Developing an Education Strategy for URL Officers. Arlington, Va.: CNA, Inc.
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42 STEM WORKFORCE NEEDS FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE U.S. DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL BASE
The panelists having concluded their opening remarks, session moderator Robert Hermann asked them to
comment on the citizenship requirement and on how DOD can make use of non-U.S. citizens.
• Vallen Emery described a barrier that he encountered when he was invited to China to give a seminar on
toxicity. The Department of State did not approve his travel, citing his Army affiliation. Emery urged that
we take a serious look at such a parochial view of what are really intellectual exchanges.
• Jennifer Byrne observed that to prepare for technological surprise, the best way of keeping ahead is situ-
ational awareness. Further, she observed that in the BRIC,28 people are not encumbered in their thinking
by technologies but that by contrast the United States is made complacent because of technologies. She
noted that Lockheed Martin funds work in Canada, Australia, and other countries where it sees capabilities
developing that could not be developed here. The flip side is that innovation thrives on diversity. Byrne
gave the example of “jugaad,” an Indian expression meaning “cheap innovative solutions.” She described
a situation in which Lockheed Martin needed 200 cleared Java programmers overnight and, not being able
to find such, had to develop a method of partitioning the work between classified and unclassified so as to
accommodate the shortage.
• Katherine McGrady noted that her adviser made regular trips to China, so globalization is not news to her.
She concurred with Vallen Emery and others who observed that if you are recruiting the best and brightest
but people are disallowed from traveling, this is a significant disincentive.
• David Chu advised that a stronger bridge to academia would be a good way to access what is going on around
the world and suggested that some dollars be used for sabbaticals in the government. Also, he asked, why not
hold more exchanges with other scientific enterprises overseas the way services do with war colleges? He
further adduced the example of British Commonwealth citizens who are seconded to the U.K. government
as if they were U.K. citizens. Lastly, Chu urged that the investment dollars be spent recognizing those who
are fluent in critical languages; we assume that the dominant language will always be English.
Robert Hermann, referring to the practice of exchange in technical domains for improving understanding in
S&T, noted that a common problem is procurement. He described how at the National Security Agency (NSA),
where the work is on highly sensitive activities, there were extensive interactions with the United Kingdom and
Commonwealth based on a degree of trust.
A participant noted Chu’s skepticism about the ability of DOD to address the supply-side problem but added
that attracting an all-volunteer force is based on incentives. He proposed that telling civilian DOD to skip incen -
tives would compromise its recruitment ability. Establishing personal relationships and internships are part of the
supply-side package, for example.
• Chu replied that the emphasis on scholarships is too much. DOD is a small part of the overall picture. He
asked about the kind of career opportunities that DOD is offering and said that sometimes DOD does not pay
enough or hire promptly or describe the opportunity in a compelling way—all of which is on the demand
side. Chu suggested that if people think there is something interesting and rewarding, they will go even if
they do not have a strong intrinsic interest. For example, in the United States we do not try to improve the
nation’s high schools (supply) but we offer a great job environment for those with a high school diploma.
• Emery expressed the view that there were not enough internships at DOD. He described the need to show
the relevance of the theory that people learn in a classroom and suggested a competition involving the
writing of a paper that entails understanding the utility of the science and engineering that the writers are
practicing.
Another participant noted that two of the speakers had said that DOD has the authority that it needs but does
not use it. He stated that such authorities have a way of becoming disused, as it is the Secretary of Defense who
has the authority, and he cannot delegate it.
28BRIC: Brazil, Russia, India, and China.
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43
SUMMARY OF PANEL SESSIONS
• Emery agreed that these authorities are not consistently applied across the services, but, for example, the
laboratory directors themselves have such authority.
• Chu advised that we should judge the system on performance not on processes.
Committee member Anita Jones commented that “the carrot” being used does matter. DOD invests in research
areas that have promise and, for example, during the 1970s and 1980s paid tuition and living expenses for com -
puter scientists who designed chips at Intel, National Semiconductor, and so forth. DOD was growing the pipeline.
A participant made the suggestion that Congress could authorize 2,000 or 3,000 graduate fellowships, and
these could be spread around rather than being converted to department-specific uses.
• Chu said that although programs of this kind are very popular, they are (maybe) not the best.
• Hermann suggested that it is possible that someone will work on some supply segment, for example, devices,
but that foresight is needed to identify such areas.
A participant observed that there is a focus on scientists and engineers with advanced degrees, but that DOD’s
needs can fall into other categories of the workforce that need some training in science and engineering, such as
engine maintenance. These are critical areas, and these workers need STEM education in high school or it is too
late; welding is a critical skill, for example.
• McGrady noted the practice of precision-based logistics, in which the person in the field can pull whatever
module is not working and send it back to the manufacturer. She observed that with DOD going to such
a system that obviates the need for STEM in the field, it may be working at cross-purposes by continuing
to push for STEM overall.
• Hermann noted that the example given by the participant may be representative only of a class of activi-
ties, such as knowing how to get a generator to work when it stops. He noted that the example may not
extrapolate to the general.
• Emery added that we do not do a good job of describing opportunities. There are opportunities for those
with associate’s degrees and with bachelor’s degrees and so forth.
• McGrady offered an example that she had observed while deployed, in which generators broke down all
the time. The person who was the best at fixing them was the guy from a family of car mechanics, and he
had never been to college.
Another participant referred to the workshop charge and the mention of “uncertainty” and asked the panel to
comment on how DOD might mitigate the impact of uncertainty.
• Chu suggested that broader preparation is needed and that this is how you can cope with developments that
you cannot forecast.
• Emery noted that through some of his visits to industry, he has learned that there is psychological profiling
performed to ensure that those hired in scientific and engineering fields can think in a flexible manner.
He commented that today it is necessary to be more multidisciplinary in approach, a point seconded by
McGrady.
A participant observed that the panel had touched on two big issues: (1) it takes a long time to get clearances,
and (2) it takes a long time to get hired into civil service. He suggested that engineers and scientists have to be
nurtured or they will leave their field to become, for example, a hedge-fund manager.
Committee member Daniel Hastings referred to data presented by Ruth David on the globalization of some
fields. He observed that Lockheed Martin is engaged globally at the same time that it is involved in classified
government work. He asked Jennifer Byrne how Lockheed Martin was taking advantage of this and absorbing
global work into its business lines.
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44 STEM WORKFORCE NEEDS FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE U.S. DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL BASE
• Byrne replied, noting that Lockheed Martin has 15 strategic technology threads in which it has seen disrup-
tion that might be important to its customers. These threads mesh with Lockheed Martin’s organizational
competences. She described the company’s use of business intelligence software to observe trends in patents
and research. This allows it to see for a given country where its technological capabilities and interests lie.
Committee Co-Chair Augustine made an observation on the ability of program managers of R&D projects and
the like to make lateral moves—specifically that 30 years ago you could work in DOD and then back into industry.
Today, however, there is a regime in force related to conflict of interest that would prevent one from doing this.
• Chu agreed that this is a serious problem that has made it difficult to attract mid-career talent. He stressed
the need to ask the question, Why don’t people come? Chu suggested that the input of the NRC to that
evidentiary process would be of great value.
