Perspective of the NSF Assistant Director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences

May 16, 2014

One benefit of leading the NSF Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences is that I hear about new science and fresh insights coming out of MPS-funded research almost every day. Because many of these developments will interest people outside the agency, we are launching a new feature on the NSF MPS web page: Perspectives. These periodic posts will highlight news about NSF-funded facilities and projects, share thoughts about topics such as budget, funding, and merit review, describe results of NSF-funded activities, and provide some perspective on issues that affect the MPS community.

One example of the sort of activity I want to write about comes from our Physics of Living Systems program in the Physics Division. They recently sponsored a three-day workshop in partnership with the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate. The topic of the workshop, "Quantitative Theories of Learning, Memory and Prediction," draws heavily on MPS-supported science and provides a clear connection to cognitive sciences. The organizers, Dani Bassett from the University of Pennsylvania, Nancy Kopell of Boston University, and Bill Bialek of Princeton University, assembled a group of researchers to explore dynamic processes in complex neural circuitry. The workshop brought together experts in theoretical physics, computational modeling, data acquisition, and cognitive neuroscience to discuss a topic at the core of the President's BRAIN Initiative.

The workshop illuminated the exceptional possibilities at the intersection of sophisticated measurement and quantitative modeling, a place where MPS-funded researchers will play an essential role. As the broad scientific community focuses on the BRAIN initiative, it is clear that the tools, techniques, models, and insights of the mathematical and physical sciences are central to understanding a dauntingly complex problem.

The excitement around the workshop touches on a more general point about the fundamental research we support. Intellectual opportunities abound in the mathematical and physical sciences. Some connect with broad initiatives such as BRAIN, and others are part of rapidly evolving areas within a traditional MPS discipline. Today's untargeted research yields tomorrow's breathtaking discovery. For example, some of the techniques such as optogenetics and magnetic resonance imaging that hold great promise for understanding the brain come from fundamental discoveries by MPS researchers, illustrating once again that innovation rests on the bedrock of basic research.

I look forward to sharing more news periodically and welcome your emailed comments at: mpsperspective@nsf.gov

Dr. F. Fleming Crim
NSF Assistant Director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences

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