Bement, Arden

▪ 2005

      The head of the National Science Foundation (NSF) for most of 2004 was Arden Bement, a metallurgical engineer and science administrator whose career included successful stints in academia, government, and private industry. Bement became acting director of the NSF on February 22 after the previous director, Rita R. Colwell, stepped down on 10 days' notice, and on November 24 he became director. Colleagues praised his ability to work with the various components of scientific bureaucracies to get them to work together harmoniously.

      Following his confirmation as director of the NSF, Bement announced that he was stepping down as director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a position he had assumed in 2001. Under Bement's leadership, NIST had taken a more active role in national security, spurred on by concerns following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In addition to conducting a major investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center towers and researching new methods of cyber security to protect the nation's utilities from computer attacks, NIST took a leading role in work toward developing new biometric technologies, such as fingerprint scanners and metal detectors.

      Arden Lee Bement, Jr., was born on May 22, 1932, in Pittsburgh, Pa. As a young man, Bement had no plans to attend college until his supervisor at a Colorado molybdenum mill offered him a challenge: if Bement could complete a semester of college, the supervisor would pay him $75. Bement took the bet and never looked back. He attended the Colorado School of Mines, where he earned an Engineer of Metallurgy degree. He went on to earn a master's degree in metallurgical engineering at the University of Idaho and a doctorate in metallurgical engineering from the University of Michigan.

      His early career in private industry included positions as a researcher at the General Electric Co. and manager of the metallurgy research department at Battelle Northwest Laboratories (Richland, Wash.; now Pacific Northwest Laboratories) before he joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970. In 1976 he accepted his first government position, serving as the director of the Office of Materials Science at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the U.S. Department of Defense. In 1979 he became deputy undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. A year later he returned to private industry, joining TRW Inc. to serve as its vice president of technical resources and of science and technology. In 1992 Bement began his second stint in academia at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., where his positions included the David A. Ross Distinguished Professor of Nuclear Engineering and head of the nuclear engineering department. In October 2001, U.S. Pres. George W. Bush nominated Bement for the top job at NIST. In relatively short order, Bement was confirmed by the Senate in November, and he was sworn in on December 7. Bement, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, had served from 1999 to 2001 as the chairman of the NIST Advanced Technology Program advisory committee.

Anthony G. Craine

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