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Overview of the Material Measurement Laboratory
The Material Measurement Laboratory (MML) is one of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST’s) six major laboratories and one of NIST’s fundamental metrology laboratories. The preponderance of MML activity occurs at the Gaithersburg, Maryland, campus, where more than 80 percent of the staff and associates are located. One MML division, Applied Chemicals and Materials, is located on the NIST Boulder, Colorado, campus. Smaller deployments are scattered across a further four sites, including the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research in Rockville, Maryland; the Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina; NIST Beamlines at the Brookhaven National Laboratory; and the NIST Pacific Islands Program in Oahu, Hawaii.
MML describes itself as serving as “the Nation’s primary resource for advancing measurements essential to the chemical, biological, and materials sciences and related engineering disciplines” to “bring focus to the development of exceptional measurement science expertise and capabilities, reference products and standards, and data science and data dissemination capabilities.” The work of MML is overall subsumed under three scientific and technical goals: (1) measurement science excellence, (2) measurement service excellence, and (3) data science and data management capabilities. There are a further two goals: (4) strategic partnering and customer engagement and (5) organizational excellence.
MML is organized into six divisions and two offices. Five of the divisions—Materials Science and Engineering, Materials Measurement Science, Biosystems and Biomaterials, Biomolecular Measurement, and Chemical Sciences—and the two offices—Office of Data and Informatics and Office of Reference Materials and are primarily located on the NIST campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The sixth division, Applied Chemicals and Materials, is located at the NIST campus in Boulder, Colorado. The divisions are focused on research and the offices are focused on measurement services. MML identified challenges include aging and outdated building infrastructure and “large” equipment needs and uses.
The Applied Chemicals and Materials Division focuses on creating and maintaining tools to measure the properties and structures of fluids and materials of importance to industry, with the goal of providing measurement tools and models, as well as critically evaluated data, to a diverse set of stakeholders. Their work is designed to support the creation of better products, and, importantly, new and improved standards.
The Biosystems and Biomaterials Division aims to advance measurement science, standards, and technology to promote U.S. biosciences and biotechnology, enhance economic security, and improve competitiveness of the U.S. bioeconomy, inclusive of increasing the resilience and flexibility of the bio-supply chain. The division is also tasked with developing cybersecurity technologies for the unique needs of genomic and biomedical-based systems.
The Biomolecular Measurement Division provides measurement science, technologies, and standards for the evaluation of biomolecules, including proteins, oligonucleotides, carbohydrates, lipids, metabolites, and complexes including such molecules. Key stakeholders include the pharmaceutical community, makers of analytical instruments, and clinical and forensics laboratories.
The Chemical Sciences Division manufactures and curates standard reference materials; develops chemical measurement science and technology, including development and fabrication of standard reference instruments; generates and curates standard reference data, including chemical informatics that
are tied to stakeholder needs; and organizes and performs quality assurance tasks. The division is motivated by the need for regulatory rigor that is stipulated by legislation, and by industry, which needs accurate measurement science in order to be competitive.
The Materials Measurement Science Division conducts mission-based fundamental research and engages in standards production and applied science and engineering. This work enables innovation in U.S. industry and addresses measurement science needs of a range of other agency stakeholders. The division’s technical work is focused in 6 areas: safety and security, forensics and public health, micro- and nano-plastics, semiconductors, climate mitigation, and ceramic additive manufacturing. These focus areas are centered around core capabilities in multiscale materials characterization, atomic and nanoscale metrology, as well as leveraging growing computational science, artificial intelligence, and data science expertise.
The Materials Science and Engineering Division is engaged in the research and development of materials measurement science, standards, technology, and data. It supports the NIST MML mission in advanced manufacturing, including the Materials Genome Initiative 2.0, additive manufacturing, and biomanufacturing. This division also has programs in advanced electronics, circular economy, climate, and the environment.
The Office of Data and Informatics provides leadership and expertise to meet the data needs of MML and NIST research data infrastructure. It also provides services to MML and to NIST through its expertise, guidance about data science, and the resources it offers in order to enhance the discoverability, usability, and interoperability of data.
The Office of Reference Materials serves a significant and prominent role in translation of NIST measurement science to stakeholders. The office’s administrative activities include managing business operations, administrative oversight, product sales, and technical support for the NIST standard reference material program. Through its responsibility for managing working capital and standards development funding, the office has a strong influence in selecting and resourcing the technical work that is developed and disseminated.
OVERARCHING THEMES AND KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
Facilities and Safety
As highlighted in prior review reports and more recently in the 2023 National Academies’ report Technical Assessment of the Capital Facility Needs of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NASEM 2023; hereafter the “Capital Facility Needs report”), aging facilities and infrastructure present significant handicaps. Notably, the report found that NIST research staff spent from 10 to 40 percent of their time working around facility shortcomings, with the typical reported values being 20 percent (NASEM 2023). Furthermore, NIST researchers are left to mitigate these limitations through repeating their work or implementing workarounds with limited research budgets.
Similar issues became apparent across MML research laboratories at both the Gaithersburg and Boulder campuses during this assessment. For instance, current research in Buildings 2 and 24 at Boulder is negatively affected by the poor control of temperature and air flow in their laboratories. On the Gaithersburg campus, in 2022, aging infrastructure led to serious flooding of MML research laboratories, with resultant loss of equipment and lost time. In addition, neither the Gaithersburg nor the Boulder facilities have the humidity and temperature control needed for many state-of-the-art measurements, which seriously limits output; and laboratory exhaust systems are inadequate for the performance of modern materials chemistry related processes. Aging computer systems limit data-sharing and data analysis that are critical for MML to achieve its technical goals. Much of the infrastructure, both buildings and equipment, has exceeded its expected life, leading to time being spent inefficiently compared to the capabilities of state-of-the-art facilities and equipment. While MML research efforts are world-leading,
aging facilities and infrastructure are such that MML is at the cusp of losing its world-leading position and its ability to continue to attract new generations of world-leading researchers.
Key Recommendation 1: The Material Measurement Laboratory (MML) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology Office of Facilities and Property Management should work together to identify and document critical laboratory infrastructure issues. They should collaborate to prioritize items that need to be addressed and create a plan with an associated timeline to address those needs. MML should actively encourage its researchers to document facilities issues and all associated time lost repeating experiments, and the portion of the research budget spent on working around facility issues.
The facilities issues observed in the course of this assessment are not only infrastructure issues. Critically, they also represent safety issues. With an abundance of electronic equipment, floods can easily lead to sparks that can in turn initiate fires; inadequate exhaust will lead to contaminated laboratory air that can negatively impact research product quality and in the long term can impact the health of research staff. As a whole, aged infrastructure and equipment can have an impact on the overall attitude of the staff toward safety. In addition, MML laboratory tours suggested a risk of safety incidents as a result of a perception that the risks, in many cases, are minimal. Safety and excellence go together. The Safety Pyramid provides a basis for a safe working environment (Prpich and Unnerstall 2022).
Safety involves an entire organization, including and particularly line management. Managers set the tone and monitor the progress against metrics. They participate in safety inspections. They lead investigations of incidents and near misses. In so doing they create the environment that ultimately grows into a safety culture. Safety is not a grassroots effort, and management needs to do more than establish the objectives; managers at all levels needs to recognize their responsibility and accountability for what happens at the same organizational intensity level as revenue and productivity targets. Participation in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Voluntary Protection Programs might be a useful way to approach safety at MML.1
Key Recommendation 2: Safety is as much a line management responsibility as an individual one. Leaders should recognize that every task can be done safely, and every task has inherent risks. That attitude needs to be transmitted down the line in order for each individual to take responsibility for not only maintaining but also improving the safety of their environment and the environments of those around them. The Material Measurement Laboratory (MML) should maintain statistics of leading indicators of safety risks and facilities dangers that represent the base of the safety pyramid. These statistics should be socialized within the organization in such a way that a safe and safety-conscious environment is created that results in a safety culture that supports continuous improvement. MML should consider engaging with experienced industrial partners who can bring a fresh perspective on the safety risks as a way of providing an unbiased and fresh pair of eyes to the situation.
Portfolio of Scientific Expertise
As enumerated in Chapters 3 through 10, the MML research staff continue to demonstrate impressive productivity in scientific publications, standards interactions, intellectual property activity, and customer engagement. Over the past 3 years MML personnel have participated in more than 180 standards committees with leadership positions in more than 45 of those committees. The strong
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1 More information about the Voluntary Protection Programs and how to participate can be found at Occupational Safety and Health Administration, “Voluntary Protection Programs,” https://www.osha.gov/vpp.
participation of MML personnel on these committees is of critical importance to the NIST mission, making it possible for MML to continue its essential role of supporting U.S. industry technology and standards needs. The strong support of its industrial stakeholders is shown in part by a significant number of cooperative research and development agreements in this review period (259 since the 2020 assessment) along with an increase in nondisclosure agreements. MML research staff are engaged and highly recognized in the scientific community. The record of peer-reviewed publications is impressive. Since 2020, MML has produced 1,292 archival journal papers, 74 conference proceedings, 184 interagency reports, 33 workshop reports, and 29 books or book chapters.
MML appears to have a limited number of mid-career staff, with large numbers of established late-career staff. There does not appear to be a clear succession path to bring in newer staff and fold them into the work of MML. While MML has no control over, and limited information about, when staff might leave, the lack of a succession plan is troublesome. More systematic succession planning may prevent gaps from occurring in mission critical areas. Cross-training to provide backup coverage in case the primary cognizant scientist leaves is a further way to protect against disruption. Alternatively, retraining staff to take on emerging issues requiring different disciplinary knowledge could be considered.
Also, regarding staffing, support from the centralized human resources office operation could be significantly improved. Hiring new administrative and research staff appears inordinately slow, taking up to 6 months just to release standard advertisements. Even when the jobs are posted and interviews conducted, there are reported instances where a new hire was agreed upon, but the notification letter never went out from human resources to the prospective employee. The procedure for hiring federal scientists and engineers was not clear to either the postdoctoral and temporary staff or the panel. The availability of positions related to MML programs and mission-focused areas appears de-prioritized compared to time-limited, emergent activities like staffing to support the work that NIST will be getting under the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. More timely support from human resources would ease the frustrations of existing staff whose progress is hampered by vacancies in administrative support, hiring of postdoctoral fellows, or staffing of existing mission areas.
Over the course of the discussions with postdocs and limited term employees, it became clear that pandemic restrictions limited onboarding and other processes that contribute to a cohesive work culture. The MML leadership team is actively working to rebuild these processes, although this work is especially challenging given the spread of people across buildings and the limited availability of shared public spaces. Career mentoring and professional development for the population of term-limited scientific appointees appears uneven. The panel also noted an uneven level of formal leadership training among the MML staff.
Key Recommendation 3: The Material Measurement Laboratory (MML) should work with National Institute of Standards and Technology human resources to develop effective processes and procedures for hiring and career development of staff. Processes to ensure timely support to MML in hiring and onboarding of postdocs, term, and permanent employees should be developed and implemented.
Key Recommendation 4: The Material Measurement Laboratory (MML) should require mentorship training for all research staff within the laboratory to ensure quality vertical mentorship and sponsorship in order to increase the impact of the postdoc and early career population both within MML and later in industry, academia, or government positions. MML should increase the number of employees who have formal leadership training to standardize mentoring and onboarding of new personnel. The training should include a formalization of clear mentor and mentee expectations in terms of work, in-person meetings, and supervision. MML should consider a standard message about the processes of transitioning from a postdoc or term appointee to a permanent staff member, and the probability thereof so as to minimize the uncertainty around this process.
Data Management and Data Infrastructure
Integral to its mission, MML collects, stores, analyzes, and transmits data in all of its research, measurement, standards-making, and dissemination activities. Accordingly, data science represents an increasingly important part of the laboratory’s work to meet its mission. Within MML, the Office of Data and Informatics is a dedicated, service-oriented data resource for physical sciences with domain expertise in biological, chemical, and materials sciences, specializing in large and information-rich data sets.
MML projects often result in the development of many different computational and theoretical methods, which while impressive are performed as part of individual projects. Across MML, data collection, storage, analysis, and movement appear to be handled by multiple, fragmented platforms, and computational data does not appear to be managed in a centralized platform. In addition, not all of the experimental measurement systems have a consolidated and automated data infrastructure, which results in a fragmented data infrastructure that unfortunately leads to discrete, inefficient, and stovepiped experimental data infrastructure across MML. Often, aging computer systems limit data-sharing and data analysis which are critical for MML to achieve its technical goals. There are many instances where old computers—year 2000 or older—using outdated operating systems such as Windows XP and Windows 2000 are in use. Reliance on outdated computing infrastructure could compromise data integrity. However, some of the use of older computers is driven by legacy instruments that cannot work with newer operating systems.
To overcome these deficiencies, the Office of Data and Informatics was effective in consolidating many vastly different operating systems of discrete sets of measurement equipment into a virtual machine. This virtual machine approach unified the measurement equipment operating systems and afforded a unified infrastructure for data management infrastructure, use, and security. The virtual machine approach may be a practice that could be useful throughout MML as it balances computational infrastructure needs with budgetary constraints.
Key Recommendation 5: To the extent possible, the Material Measurement Laboratory should launch an initiative to unify all computational systems, data formats, and data transmission protocols into a single, uniform platform for more efficient and effective data curation, storage, processing, transmission, and security management. This data science initiative could be applied to machine learning deployment and expand capabilities in laboratory automation, high-performance computing, and artificial intelligence. Computing infrastructure should, to the extent possible, be updated to meet current laboratory standards.
REFERENCES
NASEM (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine). 2019. Managing the NIH Bethesda Campus Capital Assets for Success in a Highly Competitive Global Biomedical Research Environment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25483.
NASEM. 2023. Technical Assessment of the Capital Facility Needs of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26684.
Prpich, G., and R. Unnerstall. 2022. “Translating Industrial Lab Safety Practices to Academia.” Chemical Engineering Progress 118(5):29–34.
