Toward New Naval Platforms: A Strategic View of the Future of Naval Engineering (2019)

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49 4 Naval Engineering Workforce This chapter discusses the second of three pillars supported by the Na- tional Naval Responsibility for Naval Engineering (NNR-NE): the naval engineering workforce. To do so, the chapter begins with an overview of trends in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) edu- cational attainment in the United States during the past two decades since the NNRs were established. As explained in Chapter 3, naval engineering is multidisciplinary, and therefore it shares the same workforce pipeline as many other technical and engineering fields. Consideration is therefore given to trends in the overall demand for STEM graduates, particularly from disciplines of high relevance to NE. The chapter then summarizes initiatives by the NNR-NE, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to encourage more students to pursue STEM educations and careers critical to the Navy’s NE needs. The chapter concludes by considering how NNR-NE can use the “lead, leverage, and monitor” framework for prioritizing its pipeline- and workforce-related activities. It merits noting that a recent study by the BankRate.Com ranked naval architecture and marine engineering as the most valuable college majors when taking into account factors such as median salary and unemployment rate. These students are finding work in maritime fields, such as offshore energy production and commercial shipbuilding, and in non-maritime fields where their systems engineering knowledge is valuable. While the growing value of an NE degree can be viewed as a positive development for the NE enterprise if it leads to more students entering NE programs, it may also

50 TOWARD NEW NAVAL PLATFORMS make it more difficult for the Navy to attract workers due to compensation and security clearance demands.1 TRENDS IN STEM EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES According to statistics from the National Science Foundation (NSF),2 STEM education has been on the rise in the United States over the past two decades. For instance, the number of engineering bachelor’s degrees increased by 63 percent, and the number of engineering master’s and doctorate degrees increased by more than 90 percent from 2000 to 2015 (see Figure 4-1). These gains, however, need to be placed in context with a growing number of degrees awarded in other fields that compete for students, in- cluding some that have less relevance to the NE workforce pipeline. NSF data, for example, show that the social sciences regularly account for the largest number of bachelor’s degrees awarded, and their number increased by 50 percent between 2000 and 2015 (see Figure 4-2). The popularity of engineering is nevertheless high at the graduate school level, where it ac- counted for more master’s degrees than any other field in 2015 (see Figure 4-3). As the economy has become more technology driven, competition for STEM talent has increased, which has presumably been a factor spurring 1 See https://www.bankrate.com/career/most-valuable-college-majors. 2 National Science Foundation. 2018. See https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsb20181. FIGURE 4-1 Number of engineering undergraduate and graduate degrees awarded in the United States. SOURCE: National Science Foundation (https://www.nsf.gov/statistics).

NAVAL ENGINEERING WORKFORCE 51 FIGURE 4-2 Trends in annual number (thousands) of bachelor’s degrees awarded in the United States in STEM and adjacent fields, 2000 to 2015. SOURCE: National Science Foundation (https://www.nsf.gov/statistics). FIGURE 4-3 Trends in annual number (thousands) of master’s degrees awarded in the United States in STEM and adjacent fields, 2000 to 2015. SOURCE: National Science Foundation (https://www.nsf.gov/statistics).

52 TOWARD NEW NAVAL PLATFORMS growth in the study of engineering and other technical disciplines but also a potential challenge for channeling sufficient graduates to the NE enter- prise, especially in disciplines of high relevance to NE, such as mechanical engineering, naval architecture, systems engineering, modeling and simula- tion, and data analytics. Because the broad domain of NE also includes professionals filling positions across many different science and engineering disciplines, it is difficult to characterize the total future labor demand in NE. It is notable, however, that the Bureau of Labor Statistics3 forecasts the number of U.S. positions in “Marine Engineers and Naval Architects,” which stood at 8,200 in 2016, will grow by 12 percent over the next decade, or “faster than average” and among the highest of all disciplines examined for the category of “Architecture and Engineering.” To fill these positions, the NE enterprise will need to compete with other sectors for highly qualified STEM graduates. Faced with high demand for needed engineering and technical exper- tise, an option for the NE enterprise is to recruit recent graduates from STEM fields and dedicate a period of time to training them in relevant NE subject matter. The recruitment and retention of NE professionals, however, can be further challenged by the long time required to process security clearances for new hires, which the U.S. Government Accountability Office has identified as a “high-risk” problem for federal government programs.4 As discussed in the 2012 National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council report Assuring the U.S. Department of Defense a Strong Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Workforce.5 DOD and its associated contractors have special and legitimate needs to hire STEM personnel who can obtain security clearances. Under cur- rent practices this generally requires U.S. citizenship, and special problems therefore can arise in hiring in STEM fields in which large proportions of students at U.S. universities are foreign nationals. In the context of the pool of STEM workers available to DOD, the need to obtain a security clear- ance is a two-fold source of constraint on supply. First, the time required to obtain a security clearance for citizens represents an impediment to success in DOD’s hiring process. Second, this requirement reduces the pool of the potential STEM workforce for DOD in fields in which non-citizens repre- sent substantial fractions. 3 U.S. Department of Labor. Occupational Outlook Handbook, Marine Engineers and Naval Architects. See https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/marine-engineers-and- naval-architects.htm. 4 See https://www.gao.gov/highrisk/govwide_security_clearance_process/why_did_study. 5 National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council. 2012. Assuring the U.S. Department of Defense a Strong Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Workforce. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Pp. 89–90.

NAVAL ENGINEERING WORKFORCE 53 The difficulty of recruiting in an environment that demands security clearances is a DOD-wide problem; however, ONR may be able to ease the problem, at least marginally, for recruiting to the NE enterprise. One possible option, for instance, is for the NNR-NE to provide short-term unclassified funding of work for new NE hires that enables them to begin integrating into the workforce sooner as they await security clearances. Such an option would be consistent with the advice in the 2012 National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council report, which rec- ommended that DOD be given additional authority to expedite the security clearances needed for such positions, including authority for temporary hiring for nonsensitive assignments pending security clearance.6 The com- mittee is aware, for instance, of an agreement reached in 2018 between the College of Engineering of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard that allowed senior year students to perform projects at the shipyard for credit in mechanical engineering. By earning academic credit for an unclassified capstone project in a working shipyard, the students were eligible for security clearance processing and therefore given a head start in completing this critical hiring step. RELEVANT NAVAL ENGINEERING WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS ONR’s Advanced Naval Platforms Division, which administers the NNR-NE, envisages NE workforce capacity development along a continuum from grade school to college and university programs to professional development (see Figure 4-4). Efforts to increase the workforce supply pipeline are designed to be holistic and progressive, starting with inspiring STEM interest in K–12, encouraging training and education in community and 4-year colleges, sup- porting graduate studies and university research, and providing professional development opportunities. This outlook is consistent with the 2018 guide to naval STEM,7 which explains how the development and sustainment of the talent base for the Navy’s engineering and science needs require concerted efforts aimed at the following: • Inspiration and engagement—attracting both future and present scientists and engineers to naval-relevant career paths via engage- ment of K–12 students as well as undergraduate and graduate students and professionals working in relevant disciplines. 6 National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council. 2012. Assuring the U.S. Department of Defense a Strong Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Workforce. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. P. 8. 7 See http://navalstem.navylive.dodlive.mil.

54 TOWARD NEW NAVAL PLATFORMS • Education—including the full spectrum of learners, from under- graduate and graduate students to mid-career professionals. Hands-on, experiential learning opportunities are especially effec- tive in both educating and inspiring prospective NE professionals. • Recruitment—building on early engagement of undergraduate and graduate students—and faculty—in the NE enterprise, pro- viding exciting, meaningful career opportunities to the best of the best. • Retention—ensuring that these professionals are challenged, and that they are rewarded for high performance, including via career advancement through additional training and experience. The Navy’s success in building the NE workforce pipeline can therefore be measured on the basis of a number of outcomes. Perhaps the most direct one is the population of graduate students and post-doctoral researchers supported by ONR programs. Changes in this population over time may be indicative of changing levels of ONR support for graduate work, but it may also be reflective of longer-term trends in the number of individuals enter- ing relevant STEM fields to create a larger body of interested and capable candidates for program support. FIGURE 4-4 ONR’s approach to building naval engineering workforce capacity. NOTE: STEM = science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. SOURCE: Thomas Fu. ONR. National Naval Responsibility—Naval Engineering. Presentation to the committee, April 2018.

NAVAL ENGINEERING WORKFORCE 55 The 2011 Transportation Research Board (TRB) review of the NNR-NE estimated that for the 4 years from 2006 to 2009, the program supported 1,235 graduate students and 330 post-doctoral fellows, or about 310 and 80 per year, respectively (see Table 4-1). When queried about recent support for these students and researchers, ONR program staff estimated the number of graduate students had grown to an average of about 640 per year and the number of post-doctoral fellows to about 160 per year (see Table 4-2). These most recent numbers indicate that the NNR-NE program has been increasingly successful in supporting the training and education of students pursuing advanced degrees in disciplines related to naval engineer- ing. One might infer that the NNR-NE efforts to interest K–12 students in STEM and to inspire undergraduate NE students have contributed to the growth in NE graduate students by creating a larger base of younger students interested in and able to pursue those graduate-level opportuni- ties. The NNR-NE program has a record of contributing to STEM pipeline programs and naval engineering experiential learning opportunities, and these efforts may be paying off in ways that are now becoming evident in the graduate and post-doc populations. TABLE 4-1 Graduate Students and Post-doctoral Fellows Supported by NNR-NE, 2006–2009 Fiscal Year Graduate Students Post-doctoral Fellows 2006 275 50 2007 460 100 2008 245 80 2009 255 100 SOURCE: TRB Special Report 306: Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets. Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 2011, p. 145. TABLE 4-2 Graduate Students and Post-doctoral Fellows Supported by NNR-NE, 2017 and 2018 Fiscal Year Graduate Students Post-doctoral Fellows 2017 650 129 2018 637 183 SOURCE: J. Smith, ONR, personal communication, September 2018.

56 TOWARD NEW NAVAL PLATFORMS Unfortunately, metrics that address outputs across all NNR-NE pipe- line investments are not available for assessing the validity of inferences about the long-term workforce value of investments in K–12 STEM and experiential learning. For this purpose, ONR might need “longitudinal” metrics that track individuals as they move into and through the NE workforce pipeline. The idea would be to track how many funded students transition to NE positions in the government and industry and how long they remain in those positions. While difficult to develop, such metrics could inform important choices about the appropriate mix of workforce investments across the continuum, from STEM K–12 to graduate research and professional devel opment. Although their benefit cannot be assessed directly, investments aimed at inspiring and attracting people to the NE educational pipeline are being made by NNR-NE as well as the Navy and DOD. In reviewing the data gathered on graduate and post-doctoral NE stu- dents from the 2011 TRB review (2006 to 2009, cited in Table 4-1) and this review (2017 to 2018, cited in Table 4-2), the committee also observes that the shares of the total student population from under represented groups, including women, African Americans, and Hispanics, have re- mained largely unchanged over the period, with women accounting for between 15 and 20 percent and underrepresented racial and ethnic groups accounting for ªbetween 5 and 10 percent. It merits noting that according to a recent National Academies report on STEM graduate education the number of master’s and doctoral degrees in STEM fields grew consider- ably for both men and women from 2000 to 2015, but the growth rates for women were higher.8 Women earned 96 percent more master’s degrees and 74 percent more doctoral degrees in 2015 than in 2000, while men earned 82 percent and 43 percent more, respectively. Hence, there would appear to be increasing opportunity for attracting more women to NE, especially because (according to the National Academies report) women earned 322,900 STEM degrees in 2015, nearly on parity with men (who earned 327,100 degrees). While growth rates in STEM undergraduate and graduate degrees earned by underrepresented minorities have been lower than the rates of growth achieved by women, the National Academies report points out that demographic trends are expected to increase the former’s share of potential graduate students as well—and thus potentially offer more opportunity to expand the NE talent pool. 8 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Graduate STEM Education for the 21st Century. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Pp. 33–55. https://doi.org/10.17226/25038.

NAVAL ENGINEERING WORKFORCE 57 ONR/NNR-NE Programs The SeaPerch K–12 outreach and education camp was one of the first STEM programs funded by the NNR-NE. Based on a book of that name, the first curriculum using this concept was created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to inspire young students into the ocean sciences and NE pipelines. Students learn about robotics, engineering, science, and mathematics while building an underwater remotely operated vehicle. With the assistance of ONR and the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, the SeaPerch program has expanded to reach young people across the country and abroad. The RobotX competition is another STEM effort funded under the NNR-NE program that has had considerable success in attracting young people to NE disciplines, in this case by focusing on undergraduate and graduate students. First held in 2014 in Singapore and later in Hawai‘i in 2016 and 2018, the competition employs a standardized surface vessel platform that students transform into an autonomous system capable of performing a series of tasks on the water on its own. Students are respon- sible for all aspects of the system, including sensors, controls, software, power, communications, and the propulsion system. The NNR-NE program has also played a major role in the establish- ment of several internship programs to provide the experiential learn- ing opportunities that connect both students and teachers to the NE enterprise. They include the Naval Research Enterprise Intern Program (NREIP), a 10-week program that offers summer appointments at Navy laboratories to sophomores, juniors, seniors, and graduate students from participating universities. The program is administered by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). In 2017, 41 undergraduates participated at Navy labs and about 20 at the Naval Postgraduate School. The ASEE also administers the Navy/ASEE Summer Faculty Research and Sabbatical Leave Program that enables university faculty members to work for 10 weeks (or longer for those eligible for sabbatical leave) in Navy laboratories on research of mutual interest. In addition to attracting and retaining members of the NE pipeline, programs such as these can potentially play a role in minimizing the adverse impacts on future NE workers from delays associated with obtaining security clearances. Two examples of similar programs from outside the ONR portfolio that are intended to inspire and help recruit the future analytical and engineering workforce are described in Box 4-1. They suggest a potential to leverage ongoing collaborative efforts that engage students, scientists, startups, and practitioners (including sailors) to band together to tackle difficult and important challenges, such as those that span the Navy’s digital, technical, and engineering landscape.

58 TOWARD NEW NAVAL PLATFORMS Over the years, the NNR-NE program has leveraged these various internship, scholarship, and fellowship programs to increase the number of young people and early career professionals engaged in the Navy’s NE enterprise. The Center for Innovation in Ship Design (CISD) was created around the same time as the NNR-NE program. The CISD is a partner- ship between ONR, Naval Sea Systems Command, and the shipbuilding industry. This collaborative learning environment was created to take a total ship design approach to complex design problems. The problems are addressed through “Innovation Cells” that employ teams from government, academia, and industry in high-intensity, 3- to 6-month projects to create a ship design concept; for instance, a small, fast ship. The NNR-NE program was responsible for the creation of the Cen- ters for Innovation in Naval Technologies (CINTs). The centers facilitate short-term innovation cell activities in collaboration with Naval Informa- tion Warfare Systems Command (NAVWARSYSCOM) San Diego, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Carderock, NSWC Panama City, NSWC Philadelphia, and NSWC Dahlgren. Annually, each CINT selects a topic, and creates teams of NREIP students, summer faculty, and government employees to examine the problem and develop solutions. DOD Programs DOD also supports programs that support the NE enterprise workforce. For example, the Science and Engineering Apprentice Program provides opportunities for high school students to work as junior research assistants in DOD laboratories. In 2017, 265 students participated in the program, including 24 at Navy labs and about 40 at the Naval Postgraduate School. Further along in the pipeline, the National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship Program awards fellowships to U.S. citizen graduate students pursuing advanced degrees in STEM areas of interest to DOD, including the Navy. Another example is DOD’s Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship-for-Service Program, which provides full tuition and stipend support to undergraduate and gradu- ate students pursuing a degree in a STEM discipline. SMART program scholars, who have to be citizens of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, or the United States, are required to work for a minimum number of years in a DOD lab or office. However, this requirement is often viewed as an opportunity to obtain a challenging and competitive position doing work in an area related to the scholar’s field of study. Another key advantage of SMART scholarships is that they require an early commitment from students, allowing the security clearance process to start sooner. Summaries of recent NDSEG fellowship and SMART awards are shown in Tables 4-3 and 4-4. The low number of fellowships and awards in

NAVAL ENGINEERING WORKFORCE 59 TABLE 4-3 Awards from 2014–2017 National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship Program by Field of Study Field 2014 2015 2016 2017 Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering 15 21 19 28 Biosciences 21 18 15 21 Chemical Engineering 11 5 6 9 Chemistry 13 19 14 11 Civil Engineering 3 4 2 3 Cognitive, Neural, and Behavioral Sciences 6 14 13 9 Computer and Computational Sciences 13 23 13 15 Electrical Engineering 14 14 17 17 Geosciences 10 8 6 5 Materials Science and Engineering 22 15 26 22 Mathematics 11 9 9 11 Mechanical Engineering 14 13 12 17 Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering 2 2 4 2 Oceanography 12 2 3 5 Physics 22 13 21 20 Total 189 180 180 195 Awards by Sponsoring Agency Air Force Office of Scientific Research 67 59 0 0 Air Force Research Laboratory 0 0 60 65 Army Research Office 64 61 60 65 Office of Naval Research 58 60 60 65 Total 189 180 180 195 SOURCE: https://www.ndsegfellowships.org. Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering is worrisome. While NNR-NE is leveraging these two DOD programs, it cannot know how many students from other disciplines end up pursuing careers in the multidisciplinary field of NE either in government or in the private sector. Indeed, the collection of data on how many students from other disciplines ultimately pursue NE careers—including the subset that have obtained security clearances—could shed light on this potential source of NE workers. NNR-NE efforts aimed at increasing the applicant pools for these programs may be warranted to ensure that each program’s participation adequately reflects the importance of NE to the Navy and DOD.

60 TOWARD NEW NAVAL PLATFORMS TABLE 4-4 Summary of SMART Awards and Educational Attainment 2018 2017 2016 Number of Scholars Awarded 382 343 239 Proposed Degree Percentage Percentage Percentage Bachelor’s 57 58 58 Joint Bachelor’s-Master’s 7 8 8 Master’s 18 15 15 Ph.D. 19 19 19 Awarded by Discipline Percentage Percentage Percentage Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering 7 8 8 Biosciences 1 3 3 Chemical Engineering 1 3 3 Chemistry 1 1 1 Civil Engineering 5 7 7 Cognitive, Neural, and Behavioral Sciences 1 1 1 Computer and Computational Sciences and Computer Engineering 26 22 22 Electrical Engineering 22 18 18 Geosciences 2 2 2 Industrial and Systems Engineering 2 3 3 Information Sciences 2 2 2 Materials Science and Engineering 3 1 1 Mathematics 5 3 3 Mechanical Engineering 16 20 20 Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering 1 2 2 Nuclear Engineering 1 1 1 Oceanography 0 0 0 Operations Research 1 1 1 Physics 3 4 4 NOTE: Numbers may not add to 100 percent due to rounding. SOURCE: https://smartscholarshipprod.service-now.com/smart?id=kb_category&kb_category= 6242a353dbbd0300b67330ca7c9619b9.

NAVAL ENGINEERING WORKFORCE 61 In addition to programs aimed at students, DOD has many workforce development and executive education programs targeted at the existing STEM workforce that are applicable to the NE enterprise. While most of these programs are concentrated on uniformed service members, there is vast potential for expansion of the programs to the civilian DOD work- force. The programs run the gamut from short courses taken in the work- place or online to advanced, graduate-level in-residence courses. Some DOD institutions offer certificate and degree credit courses in a broad array of resident, non-resident, and hybrid programs. The Defense Acquisition University, for example, provides training at three levels of certification. These DOD programs are obviously important for developing, maintain- ing, and enhancing the relevance of the skills of defense industry workers. There are also DOD institutions that can be exploited to convert non- STEM employees into STEM workers. For example, the Naval Postgradu- ate School (NPS) has a program to re-qualify mid-career naval officers with non-STEM degrees into master’s degree graduates of science and engineer- ing programs. It does so in both resident and non-resident offerings. DOD civilians are eligible for these NPS programs, and many are enrolled now, especially in the systems engineering domain, but further use could be made in the future of this conversion option, short-circuiting as it does the 8- to 10-year lag time between eighth grade and the workplace, and virtually eliminating attrition and clearance issues. “LEAD, LEVERAGE, AND MONITOR” WORKFORCE INVESTMENTS In Chapter 3 it was recommended that ONR use the “lead, leverage, and monitor” construct to guide its science and technology (S&T) portfolio investments. This construct, in the committee’s view, is equally suited to guiding NNR-NE’s strategic choices about education and workforce invest- ments, as shown in Table 4-5. Its use in this way would also be consistent with the advice in the 2011 TRB review, which pointed to the importance of NNR-NE having an explicit, well-guided role with regard to the NE workforce. Indeed, the earlier report concluded that “ONR research invest- ments should be directed according to the value to the Navy of the scientific knowledge they produce, but the connection between research support and professional workforce supply cannot be overlooked.” The report went on to conclude, however, that “the practical significance of managing STEM as an essential element of the NNRs is not evident.” This study committee agrees with the importance placed by the earlier study committee on NNR- NE’s STEM and workforce roles, but does not find evidence that much has changed in the program since the 2011 report was issued.

62 TOWARD NEW NAVAL PLATFORMS What the committee finds missing from the NNR-NE’s workforce activities is an “intent-driven” approach to strategic direction. NNR-NE has long supported programs aimed at inspiring and developing NE talent through a variety of means across the continuum of K–12, undergraduate student, graduate student, faculty, and government and industry employee programs discussed earlier. The program, however, lacks insightful out- come metrics that can be used to monitor and improve the effectiveness of its lead workforce responsibilities and overall progress toward its NE workforce goals. As noted earlier, the program lacks longitudinal measures to determine whether its inspirational and experiential learning programs, such as at the K–12 levels, are having a positive influence on the number of students entering the STEM fields relevant to NE and whether those students are ultimately pursuing NE careers. As the STEM fields relevant to the NE pipeline change and expand, such metrics are becoming increas- ingly important to ensure the NNR-NE program aligns with and leverages the training and other pipeline activities of other parts of ONR, DOD, and the private sector to ensure adequate workforce depth and breadth to address the Navy’s NE needs today and in the future. Such alignment and leveraging, for instance, could be helpful for finding ways to ensure that TABLE 4-5 “Lead, Leverage, and Monitor” Applied to NNR-NE Workforce Investments Lead Leverage Monitor • Inspire NE education and talent • Sponsor NE experiential learning and training via university grants that include UG and G students • Sponsor K–12 programs and outreach programs relevant to NE • Sponsor student internships at relevant Navy and DOD facilities • Sponsor NE faculty internships and sabbaticals at relevant government (and possibly industry) facilities • Navy and DOD scholarships, fellowships, and internships toward NE education • Industry internships • Government and industry faculty sabbaticals in NE- relevant settings • U.S. and international STEM competitions reflecting NE future challenges • Developments in STEM outreach and training programs in the United States and overseas • Technology developers external to DOD, including international, with a view to keeping ONR-supported training programs up to date, as well as identifying potential experiential learning opportunities NOTE: DOD = U.S. Department of Defense; G = graduate; NE = naval engineering; ONR = Office of Naval Research; STEM = science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; UG = undergraduate.

NAVAL ENGINEERING WORKFORCE 63 DOD-sponsored fellowships and scholarships attract larger numbers of naval engineers. Given the observations made earlier in this chapter, and with these stra- tegic needs of the NNR-NE workforce component in mind, the committee offers the following recommendations: • ONR should perform periodic assessments of the effectiveness of NNR-NE workforce development programs, such as faculty sum- mer fellowships, student internships, and centers for innovation (e.g., CISD and CINTs), in connecting faculty and students with Navy challenges and problems. The assessments should be sup- ported by reporting metrics that track career outcomes and paths (Recommendation 4-1). • ONR should use NNR-NE funds to leverage the STEM education and workforce programs that already exist in the U.S. Department of the Navy and DOD, such as NDSEG Fellowship and SMART Programs, as a means of increasing participation by naval engineers and naval architects in accordance with the importance these disci- plines to the Navy and DOD (Recommendation 4-2). • ONR should consider innovative means to expedite the final stages of recruitment of STEM professionals engaged in NE, such as by providing funding for newly hired personnel to train and work productively on unclassified projects while awaiting facility access clearances (Recommendation 4-3). • When developing and expanding NNR-NE programs aimed at in- spiring and recruiting students and workers to the NE enterprise, ONR should emphasize the importance of engaging individuals from underrepresented groups to maximize the talent pool (Recom- mendation 4-4). • ONR should apply the “lead, leverage, and monitor” framework for guiding its education pipeline and workforce priorities and programs (Recommendation 4-5).