Senate Confirms New NSF Director

After almost eight months of waiting, astrophysicist France A. Córdova was confirmed last week as the next director of NSF. Córdova will serve a six-year term overseeing a $7.2 billion budget that supports around 11,000 basic research grants each year across a wide range of disciplines. Córdova is a former president of Purdue University and past chancellor of the University of California, Riverside. She has also served as a professor of physics and astronomy at several universities and has held government positions including chief scientist of NASA and staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The White House nominated Córdova in July 2013, and she has been waiting for Senate confirmation since then. Cora B. Marrett has been acting director of NSF since Subra Suresh left a year ago to become president of Carnegie Mellon University.