Laurie Locascio, NIST Director

Laurie Locascio, NIST Director

A native of Cumberland, Dr. Laurie Locascio graduated from and was the 1979 Science Award Winner at Bishop Walsh High School. She earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry from James Madison University, her masters in bioengineering from the University of Utah and her doctorate in toxicology from the University of Maryland Baltimore.

In July 2021 Locascio was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) under the Department of Commerce. After a lengthy interview process by members of the United State Senate she was officially confirmed and sworn into her NIST position on April 19, 2022. She had previously served as the NIST Deputy Director prior to employment at the University of Maryland where she served as Vice-president for Research.

Dr. Locascio is currently the holder of twelve patents, all pertaining to her biomedical research, and she is only the third woman to serve as the director of the NIST since its founding in 1901. She states, "Part of the work that we do at NIST is to try to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., to large and small towns all over the U.S. ...Cumberland used to be a big manufacturing hub. That’s a very meaningful thing to me, because when manufacturing went away, a lot of people were really hurting." She further noted that her love of her hometown shapes her to this day and she is "really proud to be from Cumberland. I’m just proud of it."

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Photograph courtesy of the University of Maryland

Source: “Native of Cumberland will serve as NIST director,” Cumberland Times-News, April 23, 2022, article by Lindsay Renner-Wood