Another in Understanding Government’s series “Public Service Announcement” profiling the careers and challenges of notable government employees

By Norman Kelley

While some parents, educators and social critics deplore the effects of television on American educational standards, one show deserves high praise for inspiring young people to boldly go into the world of science.

Dr. Joan M. Frye, a Senior Staff Associate and Program Director at the National Science Foundation (NSF), is a self-confessed “trekkie.” Trained as a chemist, Dr. Frye cites the 1960 television show Star Trek as the nova that sparked her interest in pursuing science as a career.

“My husband and I are trekkies, and we went to see to the new [Star Trek] movie at the Imax Theater at the Air and Space Museum,” said the scientist (who further confessed to seeing the film six times). “We got into a conversation, and I was trying to remember what got me interested in science when I was a kid, and I realized that it was partially Star Trek.”

While  less well known than NIH or NASA, the National Science Foundation is a crucial component of the scientific research architecture, because it funds groundbreaking and innovative research in a wide variety of disciplines.  One of the federal government’s 65 independent agencies mandated by Congress, the NSF is overseen by the National Science Board, which also operates as a policy advisor to the President and Congress.

As director of NSF’s Science and Technology Centers: Integrative Partnerships  (STC/IP) program, which is administered from the Office of Integrative Activities (OIA) at NSF, Dr. Frye, along with other NSF personnel, is responsible for awarding up $5 million per year to universities — scientific research centers – in competitive grants that are five years in duration (with the possibility of a five-year renewal). Competitions for the grants are held sporadically; the first two were in the late 1980s and early 1990s; a third occurred in 1999; a fourth was held in 2002, and the most recent competition was in 2005.  Under this program, the NSF has provided funding for science in the tens of millions of dollars.

Frye remarked that grantees in her program are expected to take on “large, important, rather intractable” scientific problems.  One example is a project on space weather modeling; another grantee focused on “environmentally responsible solvents and processes,” a forerunner of research into “green chemistry.”

Another timely project that’s been funded by STC/IP, at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne, looks at declining water resources, with a particular focus on water purification, conservation, and infrastructure.  “When that was first funded in 2002,” Frye commented “there was not a strong recognition that there were going to be severe water shortages in this country.”

NSF’s Science and Technology Centers initiative is clearly designed to foster cooperation, rather than simply driving money towards individual institutions.  Grantees are expected to partner with industry, government, and other academic institutions, and international partners are required as well.  “We really want to see an impact beyond the ivory tower,” Frye emphasized, that goes “beyond journal publication. So we expect partnerships with either industry – so there’s going to be a commercial application – or with public policy-makers.”

STC is also focused on diversity in scientific research. “Diversity is a very important part of this,” says Frye, “increasing participation of groups that traditionally don’t do science. A lot of the centers partner with minority-serving institutions or women’s colleges,” she explained.  However, the STC is “really expecting meaningful partnerships. We don’t want diversity partners just for diversity. We want to see research taking place at minority-serving institutions.” Citing a “three-legged stool” analogy, Frye pointed out minority-serving institutions that benefit from STC grants must demonstrate a “strong research effort, a real strong education effort, and a really strong knowledge transfer effort.”

The National Science Foundation has other research-center-specific programs in the engineering directorate, and in chemistry, materials research, and the Science of Learning Center (which examines social behavior and the economic sciences), but “the STC program is the only one that is foundation-wide,” explains Frye.  “There are other center programs that are comparable in magnitude, but” explained the Philadelphian. “I definitely have to work with my colleagues at NSF. I couldn’t do this stuff by myself. I’m not broad enough. I’m a chemist.”

Going to a lot of meetings, visiting sites, working with a team of other program directors, (which she described as akin to “herding cats a little bit,”) Frye outlined the challenge of reviewing grant applications: “There are a lot steps to make sure you get it right when talking about this kind of money. You want to be sure you’ve funded the strongest proposals.”

Recently, STC solicited 240 pre-proposals; only five were selected.

Frye has been at NSF for 14 years, originally in the chemistry division. She began in 1995, doing an individual investigative program in experimental physical chemistry. She’s been at the Science and Technology Centers program since 2005, doing major research instrumentation at first. When funding became available a year and a half ago for running another STC competition, she switched over to the current program. Before NSF, she taught chemistry at Howard University for six years. Prior to that she worked, while as an undergrad during night school, as an analytical chemist for Arco Chemical, a petroleum company.  It was there that she met her husband, Tommie, whom she considers her “first true” mentor during her formative years as a chemist.

As an African American, Frye related that most blacks “don’t see many scientists growing up. We tend to see doctors.”  And the medical field was the direction she was headed after  growing up in Philadelphia, where she attended Melrose Academy, a small, private, all-girls high school.  It was at Melrose that Frye, – along with being influenced by Star Trek, had her “appetite whetted” for more science. However, when she began college at Temple University, she was a pre-med major “because that was the only science I knew.” She then learned that she actually needed more chemistry than biology for medical school, and switched to a major in chemistry. Graduating from Temple in 1978, she received her doctorate in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1985.

An avid reader and news junkie, Dr. Frye has thought about science’s role in public policy issues such as stem cell research, global warming and evolution.  Her view is that “there is a misunderstanding of science amongst the general public. I don’t think that scientists, in general, do as good as job as we could talking up science, but I do think that a lot of that is due to the politicization” of science.

Although she is a scientist by training and temperament, Frye considers herself a public servant after almost fifteen years of government service. “I am a big proponent of getting information to people. My public service philosophy is accessibility, accountability and honesty. When people call I really try to make an effort to get back to them quickly.”

Even though the numbers of blacks in the hard sciences still remains small, she is pleased by the fact that when she started she practically knew all the Africans Americans in chemistry. Frye noted that “it’s getting hard for me” to be personally acquainted with all African Americans in the chemistry world. “So I’m actually heartened by that. There are more young people coming through.”

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