Senate confirms new director at NIST

Senate lawmakers Friday confirmed William Jeffrey, 45, as the 13th director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Jeffrey was nominated by President Bush on May 25 to succeed Arden Bement, who was appointed director of the National Science Foundation in November last year.

Jeffrey will replace Hratch Semerjian, who has been acting director. The Commerce Department agency has had no full-time, permanent director since February 2004.

Before his new appointment, Jeffrey served in the Bush administration as senior director for homeland and national security and assistant director for space and aeronautics in the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.

He formerly served as deputy director of the Advanced Technology Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the Department of Defense and as assistant deputy director for technology in the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office.

Jeffrey received a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He lives in Herndon, Va.