At a March 29, 2012, event led by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), National Science Foundation (NSF) Director Subra Suresh joined John Holdren, the president's science and technology advisor and OSTP director, and other federal science agency leaders to discuss cross-agency big data plans. The agency leaders--Suresh; Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health; Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Geological Survey; Zachary Lemnios, assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering at the U.S. Department of Defense; Ken Gabriel, acting director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; and William Brinkman, director of the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy--announced new areas of research funding by their agencies to address opportunities and challenges of the big data revolution. Following a question-and-answer period, a second panel of industry and academic thought leaders continued the discussion, moderated by Steve Lohr of the New York Times. The panelists were Daphne Koller, Stanford University; James Manyika, McKinsey & Company; Lucila Ohno-Machado, UC San Diego;and Alex Szalay, Johns Hopkins University. To find out more about the big data event and view the webcast, see the NSF news release ( www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=123607&org=NSF).

Credit: Peter Cutts for NSF