The White House has named Laurie Locascio, a three-decade veteran of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and current vice president of research at the University of Maryland, as President Biden’s pick for commerce undersecretary for standards and technology.
In her current role, Locascio oversees innovation programs at UMD campuses in College Park and Baltimore, which collectively receive $1.1 billion in external research funds each year, the White House said Friday. She also teaches at the university’s bioengineering and pharmacology departments.
Locascio joined UMD in October 2017 after more than two decades of service at NIST, where her roles included acting principal deputy director and associate director for laboratory programs.
She managed internal scientific research and lab efforts at agency-run facilities in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Boulder, Colorado. The biomedical researcher received 11 patents and authored more than 100 scientific papers over the course of her career.