NSF director Suresh, Energy secretary Chu announce resignations

Less than halfway through a six-year term, NSF director Subra Suresh has announced that he will leave the post in late March to become president of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Suresh, 56, will succeed retiring CMU president Jared Cohon on 1 July.

In a letter to NSF employees, Suresh listed some of his accomplishments: efforts to increase international collaborations; the “OneNSF” initiative for interdisciplinary research projects that are funded by more than one NSF disciplinary division; continuing support of major observatories and other major scientific infrastructure; and interagency research initiatives in fields including robotics, big data, materials, and advanced manufacturing.

The NSF directorship is unique among the executive branch’s top science-related appointees in that it is for a specified term. As with all other US presidential appointees, however, the NSF director also serves at the pleasure of the president. Prior to being confirmed as head of NSF in October 2010, Suresh had been dean of engineering at MIT.

Suresh’s public resignation letter came a few days after Department of Energy secretary Steven Chu announced his intention to step down. Chu, 64, who last week became the longest-serving DOE secretary, said he will remain on the job until at least the end of February, and possibly until a successor is confirmed. “I would like to return to an academic life of teaching and research but will still work to advance the missions that we have been working on together for the last four years,” Chu said in a letter to DOE employees. The Nobel laureate physicist said he would return to California, where he had been director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory prior to joining DOE.

President Obama thanked Chu for his service. “Because of his leadership, this country is further along on the path to energy independence. It’s better positioned for the jobs and industries of the future,” Obama said at a 1 February White House ceremony for recipients of the National Medals of Science and Technology.

In his letter, Chu cited creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, a DOE entity that funds high-risk clean-energy technologies, at the top of his list of accomplishments. He also added that the department had “made significant progress in breaking down the walls between our basic science and applied science programs” and that the $36 billion provided in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for clean energy had been invested “with a robust review process that brought a new level of expertise from inside and outside the Department to ensure that decisions were based on the merits of each applicant.”