National Institute of Standards and Technology (U.S.)

Institutional History

Abstract

Formerly known as the National Bureau of Standards, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an authoritative domestic measurement and standards laboratory that provides technology, measurement, and standards for numerous industries.

Directors

1988-89, Ernest Ambler.

1990-93, John W. Lyons.

1993-97, Arati Prabhakar.

1997-2000, Ray Kammer.

2000-01, Karen Brown.

2001-04, Arden L. Bement, Jr.

2004-05, Hratch Semerjian.

2005-07, William A. Jeffrey.

2007-08, James M. Turner.

2008-15, Patrick D. Gallagher.

2015-present, Willie E. May.

Important Dates

1988National Bureau of Standards was renamed the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

1988 – 1992Philip Klebanoff was on staff.

1988 – 2002Gordon Dunn was on staff.

1988 – 2013Carl Wieman was on staff.

1988 – presentPaul Julienne has been on staff.

1988 – presentDavid Wineland has been on staff.

1988 – presentJohn Cahn has been on staff.

1988 – presentJames Bergquist has been on staff.

1988 – presentWilliam Phillips has been on staff.

1988 – presentJohn L. Hall has been on staff.

1992Produced the world's first DNA profiling standard.

1992 – presentEric Cornell has been on staff.

1995 – presentDeborah Jin has been on staff.

1996Kent Irwin invented the first practical "transition-edge" sensors, which precisely measure energy using a superconducting metal.

1997Greg Linteris investigated how gravity affects combustion; how to design efficient, clean-burning combustion engines; and how to improve fire safety while onboard Columbia flight STS-94.

1999 – presentMargaret Murnane has been on staff.

1999 – presentJun Ye has been on staff.

October 2, 2000Selected the Rijndael algorithm as the nation's new Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

2004Deborah Jin and colleagues created the first fermionic condensate in a gas of potassium.

February 4, 2010Experimental quantum logic clock, first built by Till Rosenband in 2005, was thought to be the world's more precise clock. It will neither gain nor lose a second in 4 billion years.

Places

Headquarters

Gaithersburg (Md.)

Subjects

Atomic clocks.

Combustion.

Computers.

Electricity.

Electronics.

Nanotechnology.

Physics -- Industrial applications.

Research Institute

Science. Research.

Citations

Historical information from NIST History Timeline website (https://www.nist.gov/timeline#event-a-href-node-774241nist-founded-a).

Relationships

People

Employees & Officers

Ambler, Ernest, 1923-

Director.

Bement, A. L., 1932-

Director.

Bergquist, James Charles

Researcher, Boulder Laboratories.

Cahn, John W., 1928-

Senior Fellow, Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory and Emeritus Fellow.

Cornell, Eric Allin, 1961-

Senior Scientist.

Dunn, G. H. (Gordon H.), 1932-

Senior Scientist and Fellow, Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA).

Gallagher, Patrick David, 1963-

Deputy Director and Director.

Gibbons, John H., 1929-2015

Member, Advisory Committee, Energy Conservation Programs.

Hall, J. L. (John L.), 1934-

Senior Scientist.

Jeffrey, William Alan, 1960-

Director.

Jin, Deborah S.

National Research Council (NRC) Research Associate, Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA); Physicist, Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA); and Fellow, Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA).

Julienne, Paul S.

Group Leader, Molecular Physics Division; Group Leader, Quantum Processes Group, Atomic Physics Division; and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Fellow.

Kammer, Raymond Gerard, 1947-

Director.

Klebanoff, P. S.

Guest Scientist.

Leaderman, Herbert,

Physicist.

Lyons, John W., 1930-

Director.

May, Willie E.

Director.

Murnane, Margaret

Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) Fellow.

Peterlin, A. (Anton)

Researcher.

Phillips, William D. (William Daniel), 1948-

Physicist; Fellow; and Leader, Lased Cooled and Trapped Atoms Group, Atomic Physics Division.

Prabhakar, Arati, 1959-

Director.

Semerjian, Hratch G.

Acting Director.

Simha, Robert, 1912-2008

Consultant and Coordinator of Polymer Research.

Truesdell, C. (Clifford), 1919-2000

Consultant, and Chairman of Conference on the Foundations of Mechanics and Thermodynamics.

Wieman, C. E. (Carl Edwin)

Fellow, Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA).

Wineland, David J.

Physicist; Fellow; and Project Leader, Ion Storage Group.

Ye, Jun, 1967-

Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) Associate Fellow; Physicist; Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) Fellow; and Fellow.

Associates & Members

Bahcall, John N.

Bederson, Benjamin

Brodsky, M. H. (Marc Herbert), 1938-

Burnell, S. Jocelyn

Chu, Ching-wu, 1941-

Cressman, George P. (George Parmley), 1919-2008

Danos, Michael

Dylla, H. F.

Feigenbaum, Mitchell, 1944-2019

Ginzburg, V. L. (Vitaliĭ Lazarevich), 1916-2009

Jacox, Marilyn E.

Khalatnikov, I. M. (Isaak Markovich)

Klitzing, K. von

Lederman, Leon M.

Madden, Robert P.

Molina, Mario J.

Peoples, John, Jr.

Phelps, Arthur V. (Arthur Van Rensselaer), 1923-

Ramsey, Norman, 1915-2011

Schooley, James F.

Shull, Clifford Glenwood

Taylor, Lauriston S. (Lauriston Sale), 1902-2004

Watson, R. T.

Institutions

Institutional Hierarchy

Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics

Institute is run as a joint institute between NIST and University of Colorado Boulder.

United States. National Bureau of Standards

Name changed in 1988.

Collaborators

American Nuclear Society

Co-sponsored 1989 conference on nuclear fission.

University of Colorado Boulder. Department of Physics

Run the JILA as a joint institute.

Associates

American Institute of Physics

Corporate Associate.

Resources

Archival Resources

Author

A history of numerical weather prediction [videorecording] / by George Cressman.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Almost absolute zero [videorecording] : the story of laser cooling and trapping / William D. Phillips.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Can corporate research survive? [videorecording] / John Seely Brown.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Cold fusion [videorecording] : too hot to handle? /$cFrank Close.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Early development of neutron scattering [videorecording] : a lecture / by Clifford G. Shull.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Fifth force physics and the gravity of spinning tops [videorecording] / James E. Faller.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Fifty years with nuclear fission [videorecording]: highlights of the 1989 conference.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Great scientists I've met [videorecording] / Norman Ramsey.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

High temperature superconductivity [videorecording] : present status and future challenges : a lecture / by Paul Chu.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

In pursuit of pulsars [videorecording] / Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Los Alamos and Tinian: [videorecording] a personal memoir, 2006 February 17.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

New insights into old problems [videorecording]: on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the non-conservation of parity experiment at NBS, 2005.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

NIST at 100 : foundations for progress, 2000.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Quantum dots and single electron tunneling [videorecording] / Klaus von Klitzing.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Science education [videorecording] : a history of involvement / Leon M. Lederman.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Spark of a life in physics [videorecording] : a lecture on the life of L.D. Landau / Colloquium at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2004 March 12.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Stratospheric ozone depletion [videorecording] : a global problem / Mario J. Molina.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

SURF is up [videorecording] : the history of the NIST synchrotron ultraviolet radiation facility : a lecture / presented by Robert P. Madden.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

The new alchemists [videorecording] : diamond making and the quest for high pressure, a lecture / by Robert M. Hazen.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

The Sloan digital sky survey [videorecording] : industrial scale astronomy / John Peoples.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

The way we were [videorecording] / Jacob Rabinow.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Toward the harnessing of chaos [videorecording] : a lecture / by Mitchell Feigenbaum.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Unsolved problems in astrophysics [videorecording] / John Bahcall and Neta Bahcall.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Subject

AIP Office of the Director addition to records of Marc H. Brodsky, email correspondence, 1993-2007.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

History of metrology and today's frontiers of measurement [sound recording], 2012 March 1.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Michael Danos papers, 1950-2003.

The Joseph Regenstein Library. Department of Special Collections

University of Chicago

1100 East 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA

Miscellaneous lectures and writings (mostly unpublished), Lauriston S. Taylor, 1928-1978.

NIST Research Library and NIST Archives

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Information Services Division. 100 Bureau Drive, MS 2500, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA

Oral history interview with Arthur V. Phelps, 2008 October 14.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Oral history interview with H. Frederick Dylla, 2010 October 18.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Oral history interview with Lauriston Taylor, 1990 April 10 by Elio Passaglia.

NIST Research Library and NIST Archives

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Information Services Division. 100 Bureau Drive, MS 2500, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA

Oral history interview with Marilyn E. Jacox, 1998 February 11 and 18.

NIST Research Library and NIST Archives

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Information Services Division. 100 Bureau Drive, MS 2500, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA

Oral history interview with Robert T. Watson, 2009 March 13.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Vitalii Ginzburg papers, 1992.

Niels Bohr Library & Archives

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA

Published Resources

Author

50 years with nuclear fission : National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. and National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland, April 25-28 1989 / edited by James W. Behrens, Allan D. Carlson ; sponsored by American Nuclear Society [and] NIST, United States Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology.

A century of excellence in measurements, standards, and technology / David R. Lide [editor].

Characterization and metrology for ULSI technology / editors, David G. Seiler ... [et al.] ; sponsoring organizations, National Institute of Standards and Technology ... [et al.].

Frontiers of characterization and metrology for nanoelectronics : 2007 International Conference on Frontiers of Characterization and Metrology for Nanoelectronics, Gaithersburg, Maryland, 27-29 March 2007 / editors, David G. Seiler ... [et al.] ; sponsoring organizations, National Institute of Standards and Technology ... [et al.] ; poster session sponsors, Applied Materials ... [et al.].

Responding to national needs the National Bureau of Standards becomes the National Institute of Standards and Technology, 1969-1993 / James F. Schooley.