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Proposed DOD Rule Seeks to Implement CMMC 2.0 Program-Related Contractual Requirements
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Proposed DOD Rule Seeks to Implement CMMC 2.0 Program-Related Contractual Requirements

The Department of Defense has started soliciting comments on a proposed rule to implement the contractual requirements related to the second iteration of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program.

According to a Federal Register notice published Thursday, DOD introduced the proposed rule as an amendment to the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement and to partially implement a section of the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that directed the DOD secretary to establish a framework to improve the defense industrial base’s cybersecurity posture.

CMMC 2.0 provides a framework for the assessment of a contractor’s implementation of cybersecurity requirements. The program also seeks to improve the protection of unclassified information within the DOD supply chain.

According to the notice, the proposed rule includes amendments requiring the results of a CMMC self-assessment or certificate at the time of award and at the level required for all systems that store, process or transmit controlled unclassified information or federal contract information.

The measure also includes a requirement for contracting officers to work with the program office to verify the results of a CMMC certificate or self-assessment in the Supplier Performance Risk System prior to awarding a contract or exercising an option.

Comments on the proposed policy are due Oct. 15.

Treasury Offers Details on CFIUS Penalty Actions Through Updated Website
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Treasury Offers Details on CFIUS Penalty Actions Through Updated Website

The Department of the Treasury has unveiled the updated website of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to provide the investing community and the public with additional information on the enforcement work and compliance approach of CFIUS and the committee’s penalty actions.

The Treasury said Wednesday the updated website includes detailed information on civil monetary penalties imposed by CFIUS in the last few years, including a description of the nature of the conduct that resulted in the penalty.

The department chairs CFIUS, an interagency committee that reviews certain foreign investment deals to determine the effect of such transactions on U.S. national security.

“In the last few years, CFIUS has redoubled its resources and focus on enforcement and accountability, and that is by design: if CFIUS requires companies to make certain commitments to protect national security and they fail to do so, there must be consequences,” said Paul Rosen, assistant secretary of the Treasury for investment security.

“Today’s penalty updates underscore CFIUS’s commitment to accountability and the protection of national security,” added Rosen.

OPM, OMB Provide Agencies With Guidance to Improve Talent Acquisition
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OPM, OMB Provide Agencies With Guidance to Improve Talent Acquisition

A joint memorandum from the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget provides federal agencies with guidance to address government workforce challenges.

The memo identifies critical steps to strengthen workforce-related data analytics; design and build an improved applicant and hiring manager experience with tools and training; and update hiring strategies to recruit, retain and advance talent, the OPM said Wednesday.

The document also highlighted several practices to improve talent acquisition, including enhancing collaborative talent management and planning, creating and sustaining agency talent teams responsible for enabling strategic recruitment and implementing innovative hiring actions, and encouraging flexible rating and ranking approaches when initiating a competitive recruitment action.

Agencies are asked to present results to the President’s Management Council to monitor and evaluate their progress in improving the hiring experience.

The OPM released three fact sheets on resources and tools—including a document on automation and analytics—to support federal departments and components in implementing the guidelines.

The U.S. government has been working to close critical skills gaps, particularly in the fields of cybersecurity and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, amid a talent competition with the private sector.

DOE Seeks Feedback on Initiative to Bolster Energy Efficiency of Semiconductor Products
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DOE Seeks Feedback on Initiative to Bolster Energy Efficiency of Semiconductor Products

The Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office within the Department of Energy is seeking public input regarding the Energy Efficiency Scaling for Two Decades Initiative and has issued a request for information for the effort.

The EES2 Initiative seeks to double every two years the energy efficiency of semiconductor industry products, which, over the last three decades, has fallen out of pace with global computing demand and, if trends continue, could lead to the consumption of 20 percent of global energy production, the DOE said Wednesday.

AMMTO is also seeking input regarding the draft EES2 Research and Development Roadmap, which outlines the technologies that need to be developed in order to achieve the energy efficiency that the project is targeting.

Feedback regarding three categories is being sought:

  • EES2 initiative goals and objectives
  • Roadmap document
  • Process and future steps

Stakeholders, like those from industry, academia and government, have until Sept. 30 to respond to the RFI.

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Col. Bryan Sparkman Named Air Force Deputy Chief Data & AI Officer
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Col. Bryan Sparkman Named Air Force Deputy Chief Data & AI Officer

The Department of the Air Force’s Chief Data and AI Office has named Col. Bryan Sparkman as deputy chief data and artificial intelligence officer.

The department’s CDAO announced Sparkman’s appointment in a LinkedIn post published Wednesday.

He succeeds the retiring Col. Anthony “Tony” Lang, who assumed the deputy CDAO position in January.

Sparkman most recently served as chief analyst of the force application division within the Joint Staff.

The department’s CDAO was established in 2017 to enable DAF to leverage the military branch’s data to support missions, strengthen readiness, enhance its cybersecurity posture and achieve military advantage.

In January 2022, the office implemented AI technologies within DAF as part of efforts to drive data innovation and leverage industry capabilities.

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NIST Solicits Public Comment on Enhancing Semiconductor Supply Chain Security
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NIST Solicits Public Comment on Enhancing Semiconductor Supply Chain Security

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is soliciting public comments on its initial draft of an interagency report summarizing the presentations and discussions on semiconductor supply chain security during a recent NIST workshop.

The insights gathered from the workshop’s participants, which included representatives from government, industry and academia, will inform the development of supply chain standards and cybersecurity guidance, NIST said Wednesday.

The highlights of the report, titled “Enhancing Security of Devices and Components Across the Supply Chain,” include security issues on the hardware development lifecycle and approaches on addressing the concerns.

Among the proposed solutions for vulnerabilities in hardware development are maintaining public-private sector partnerships and adopting more meaningful security metrics.

To develop tighter security standards, the report presented various steps, such as creating metrics based on threat models, vulnerable assets and product lifecycle stages.

In addition, the report emphasized the workshop’s suggestions on securing the manufacturing environment through automated cybersecurity tools and methods.

The deadline for the submission of comments on the draft NIST report is Sept. 16.

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IARPA’s William Benard Confirmed to Keynote 2024 Intel Summit
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IARPA’s William Benard Confirmed to Keynote 2024 Intel Summit

New technologies and changing geopolitical dynamics have radically transformed the intelligence landscape, and Intelligence Community officials are racing to stay ahead of the competition.

The Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Intel Summit on September 19 will bring together key IC leaders and industry executives to dive into the intricacies of modern intelligence operations and the forces shaping the future of the field. One featured speaker is Dr. William Benard of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, a seasoned researcher and intelligence expert who will close out the event with a keynote address. Keep reading for a look into Benard’s career background and scientific endeavors.

William Benard’s Career Background

Benard currently serves as director of IARPA’s Office of Collections. In this role, he leads research programs across a wide range of disciplines, including the science of design, distributed sensing, the design and manufacture of complex products and additive manufacturing as well as semiconductor materials, devices and architectures. He was appointed to the position in May.

Benard has extensive experience in technology research. He most recently served as chief of the Photonics, Electronics and Quantum Sciences Division within the DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, and he has held a variety of other roles within the agency, including senior campaign scientist for materials research, acting chief of the Electro-Optics and Photonics Division and manager of its Specialty Electronic Materials and Sensors Cleanroom.

He has also conducted research for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. His projects with DARPA covered a wide range of areas, such as inertial sensors, X-ray lithography systems, optical switches, NASA payloads, genomic X-prize efforts and radiation detectors.

Office of Collection Priorities

IARPA’s Office of Collection currently oversees nine research initiatives. Below are three key projects you should know about.

MicroE4AI

The Microelectronics for Artificial Intelligence, or MicroE4AI program, is intended to advance hardware and software algorithm-architecture to elevate the performance of AI and machine learning applications hosted on microelectronic devices.

Through this effort, IARPA hopes to make these algorithms more accessible to edge users by reducing the size of technologies needed for AI/ML tools and increasing cost-effectiveness. To do so, MicroE4AI aims to:

  • Create new materials
  • Boost performance
  • Emphasize compactness and low energy requirements

ELQ

Shortened to ELQ, the Entangled Logical Qubits program seeks to progress science in the area of universal fault-tolerant quantum computing using logical quantum bits. The objective of the project is to present high-fidelity entanglement between error-corrected logical qubits using a modular architecture.

To achieve this goal, IARPA will integrate the properties of quantum coherence and entanglement within an error-corrected environment by creating systems that can encode quantum information in qubits. This approach is expected to improve quantum error correction to prevent degradation of these properties.

EquAL-P

Known as EquAL-P, the Effective Quantitative Antenna Limits for Performance effort serves as a pipeline to progress electrically small antennas, or ESAs, by activating them using non-linear, time varying methods.

Today, radio frequency communication systems operating across long distances require proportionally sized antennas to function. Though smaller antennas are in high demand, using them for these wavelengths can cause performance issues.

These RF systems are typically activated using linear, time-invariant, or LTI ideas, but progress with this approach has slowed. A major goal of EquAL-P is to establish measurements for non-LTI antennas to provide a path for better understanding these techniques.

Hear From Benard at 2024 Intel Summit

Want to know more about what IARPA is up to? At the 2024 Intel Summit, you will get to hear from Benard directly during his keynote speech, in which he will share his insights on relevant IARPA topics. These three research projects are just a preview of the many areas he may discuss, so head over to the Potomac Officers Club website to register for the event and harness the opportunity to learn more.

IARPA’s William Benard Confirmed to Keynote 2024 Intel Summit
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Laura Berzak Hopkins Appointed to Dual Leadership Role at PPPL
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Laura Berzak Hopkins Appointed to Dual Leadership Role at PPPL

Laura Berzak Hopkins has been selected as the new associate chief laboratory director for strategy and deputy chief research officer of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

The PPPL said Monday Berzak Hopkins was appointed to the dual role after serving as associate program director for integrated weapons science at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Berzak Hopkins is responsible for more than 100 experiments for the National Ignition Facility during her time with LLNL. She also held various positions since joining the laboratory in 2012.

The seasoned national laboratory scientist was the deputy for assessment science to the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration Office of Experimental Sciences. She served as chair of the High Density Science laboratory-Directed Research and Development review committee. She was the funding manager for the weapon survivability program and a design physicist in the inertial confinement fusion program.

In addition, Berzak Hopkins was also an action officer to the Integrated Planning Group and a member of the Livermore GuideStar team and Sandia National Laboratories’ Radiation, Electrical and High Energy Density Science Research Foundation External Board Review.

Aside from her role as a leader and experimentalist, Berzak Hopkins also dabbles in science communication. She has given talks at conferences sponsored by the European Physical Society and American Physical Society and at LLNL summer scholars programs.

She taught schoolchildren at Livermore’s Fun With Science program and acted as a tour guide for the NIF. She is also the assistant editor for the quarterly publication of the APS Forum on Physics and Society.

Berzak Hopkins earned a PhD in plasma physics from Princeton University. She also holds bachelor’s degrees in physics and chemistry from Dartmouth University.

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GSA Unveils 3rd Cohort of 70 Digital Corps Fellows
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GSA Unveils 3rd Cohort of 70 Digital Corps Fellows

The General Services Administration has announced the third cohort of 70 U.S. Digital Corps fellows, who will work on artificial intelligence-related projects and other high-priority technology initiatives at 19 federal agencies over a two-year period.

GSA said Tuesday more than 40 USDC fellows will work on AI-related projects.

“Growing the U.S. Digital Corps is crucial to driving innovation across the federal government, especially as emerging technologies like AI evolve,” said GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan.

“GSA is focused on delivering great value to our customer agencies and the American people, so we are proud to help lead the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to bring tech talent into government to deliver those results,” added Carnahan.

Six of the 19 agencies are USDC’s new agency partners, including the U.S. Geological Survey, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Internal Revenue Service.

GSA selected the latest cohort of fellows from more than 2,000 applications.

USDC welcomed the first cohort of fellows in June 2022.

In July 2023, GSA announced the second cohort of 48 early-career technologists to USDC.

Click here to see the full list of 2024 USDC fellows.

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ISS Cold Atom Lab Demos Quantum Tech’s Potential Space Applications
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ISS Cold Atom Lab Demos Quantum Tech’s Potential Space Applications

NASA’s science team has deployed a new quantum-based tool at the International Space Station’s Cold Atom Lab to measure forces such as gravity and magnetic fields that could support advancing technologies for aircraft and shift navigation.

Called an atom interferometer, the sensor measured subtle ISS vibrations for the team’s study that also recorded the longest demonstration of atoms’ wave-like nature in space freefall, NASA said.

Other potential uses of space-based gravity sensors include uncovering the composition and surface mass changes of planets and moons, the agency added.

Precise gravity measurements can also help unlock the cosmological puzzles of dark matter and dark energy, according to NASA.

The agency launched the Cold Atom Lab in 2018 to advance quantum science in a long-term facility operating in low Earth orbit’s microgravity environment.

The lab can cool atoms at low temperature levels that make them macroscopic and easier to study through quantum technology approaches.

The Biological and Physical Sciences division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington sponsored the lab, which was designed and built by JPL, a Caltech division in Pasadena, California.

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