Just before the holidays, President-Elect Trump announced that Michael Kratsios will be nominated as the Director of the Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). Informally known as the President’s Science Advisor, the Director of OSTP oversees the office tasked with providing advice to the President, and the Executive Office of the President, on matters related to science and technology, as well as coordinating the Administration’s science and tech policy among the assorted federal research agencies. Mr. Kratsios comes into the position with extensive experience in the first Trump Administration, where he served both at OSTP and the Defense Department in senior research policy roles. He will also serve as an assistant to the President for science and technology.

It was also announced that computer scientist Lynne Parker, of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, was named counselor to Kratsios and executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Dr. Parker previously served in OSTP from 2018 to 2022, in both the Trump and Biden Administrations, and at NSF in the CISE Directorate as Division Director for Information and Intelligent Systems from 2015 to 2016. In her previous role at OSTP, she led national AI policy efforts as Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the United States, the founding Director of the National AI Initiative Office, and Assistant Director for AI.

Other high level OSTP staff announced were Sriram Krishnan, who will serve as Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence, and Bo Hines, who will be the Executive Director of the new Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets (informally dubbed the “Crypto Council”). This follows up on the news earlier in December that David Sacks will serve as advisor to the president for AI and cryptocurrency and co-chair to PCAST.

These advisor and staff announcements are encouraging news, as this means that OSTP’s leadership will be in place much sooner than in Trump’s first term, when it was over 2 years before the office had a confirmed director. The news about Mr. Kratsios and Dr. Parker, in particular, is good news, as both are well known to the computing research community and are well respected in their fields. Exactly when they will be in place is hard to tell at the moment; Kratsios’ nomination will need to be confirmed by the Senate before he can take up his position full time. But the other positions should be able to start soon after the Administration is sworn into office on January 20th.

This news also drives home that artificial intelligence and blockchain technology will be important issues in the second Trump Administration’s science and technology portfolio. CRA will continue to impress to elected officials and policymakers the essential role that fundamental research will play in the develop and advancement of both technologies, as well as the role other computing research disciplines will be to the future prosperity of the country.