William Jeffrey (NIST)
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Dr. William Jeffrey is the 13th Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), sworn into the office on July 26, 2005. He was nominated by President Bush on May 25, 2005, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 22, 2005. He is a member of the Election Assistance Commission's Technical Guidelines Development Committee, tasked with assisting the EAC in drafting the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines.[1]
He has been involved in federal science and technology programs since 1988. Previous to his appointment to NIST he served as senior director for homeland and national security and the assistant director for space and aeronautics at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) within the Executive Office of the President. At OSTP he was instrumental in guiding the creation and development of the science and technology aspects of the newly created Department of Homeland Security especially as they relate to weapons of mass destruction countermeasures. Earlier, he was the deputy director for the Advanced Technology Office and chief scientist for the Tactical Technology Office with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
He has also served as the assistant deputy for technology at the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office, where he supervised sensor development for the RQ-1 Predator and RQ-4 Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV's)and the development of common standards that allow for cross-service and cross-agency transfer of imagery and intelligence products. He also spent several years working at the Institute for Defense Analyses performing technical analyses in support of the Department of Defense.
He received his Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University and his B.Sc. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
