Tech transfer expert named head of NIST

Walter Copan has been nominated by president Donald Trump to lead the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Copan is chief executive of the Intellectual Property Engineering Group, a business consultancy in Boulder, Colorado. He was previously in charge of technology transfer efforts at Brookhaven National Laboratory and at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. His nomination was announced by the White House on 12 September.

Copan, who has a PhD in chemistry, told ScienceInsider that his priority at the standards and technology institute would be to implement the cybersecurity framework—the institute’s plan to improve digital security across the federal government. “I think we all see cybersecurity as national security and economic security,” he said in the article, published on 18 September.