Bioeconomy Standards Scholars in Residence Initiative

NSF and NIST are announcing a joint Bioeconomy Standards Scholars in Residence Initiative (hereinafter “the Initiative”) to catalyze the development of standards and metrics for the bioeconomy. Through the Initiative, researchers (graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty members, and professionals from industry) will have the opportunity to spend dedicated time in a NIST laboratory learning first-hand to develop standards, and foster adoption of those standards, in fields associated with biotechnology and the bioeconomy.

These scholars will play a pivotal role in enabling commerce through the development of standards and metrics to help meet the following objectives:
• Develop machine readable code for one or more standardized protocols. 
• Develop biological or physical objects that enable calibration and/or benchmarking.
• Enable AI-ready data standardization and integration.
• Other objectives jointly identified by the applying scholar and their NIST host.

NIST will focus on these broadly applicable objectives and workflows commonly used for engineering microorganisms. Robust workflows will greatly accelerate engineering biology Rand will enable curation of high quality, AI-ready data for prediction of function from sequences. The Initiative will make use of the state-of-the-art integrated laboratory automation systems at the Living Measurement Systems Foundry within NIST, and the expertise of the full-time staff who will serve as Hosts.