NIST in Maryland

• Maryland has the country’s No. 1 cybersecurity workforce in both numbers and depth of expertise. NIST supports the sector with highly regarded standards and guidelines that are adopted by every industry and civilian federal agency.
• The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence was founded in 2012 by a partnership among NIST, the State of Maryland and Montgomery County to accelerate the adoption of cybersecurity solutions and catalyze jobs, training and thought leadership. NIST contributes $39.5 million each year to fund the center’s operations.
• NIST’s NICE program advances cybersecurity education, training and workforce development to increase the number of skilled cybersecurity professionals working in Maryland. NICE is funding cybersecurity training programs in the state for a total of $400,000 to prepare students for high-paying jobs in the sector, which has thousands of open positions in Maryland.
• Nearly $1 million in funding from NIST will create a cybersecurity research center in Prince George’s County. Also, an Ellicott City company has received $400,000 to develop a digital tool to better apply NIST cybersecurity standards.
• NIST is funding the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, a partnership with the University of Maryland, with $6.1 million through August 2026.

• NIST is a founding member and primary funder of the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research, a partnership with the University of Maryland, College Park, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore. NIST’s contribution of approximately $17 million over the past five years helps to expand the bioeconomy in the state of Maryland and nationwide. For example, NIST reference materials developed at IBBR provide Maryland’s biopharmaceutical manufacturers, which contribute $32.1 billion to the state’s economy, with tools for assuring the quality of their processes and products.
• In 2023, 40 organizations in Maryland used 52unique NIST reference materials, which ensure:
  • Quality assurance for makers of pharmaceuticals and medical devices
  • Accuracy in state and federal laboratories, including for criminal investigations
  • Precision for common clinical tests for cholesterol and other markers of health and disease
  • Validity of environmental monitoring for water quality and pollutants in the environment
• From 2022 to 2024, $1.5 million in grants from NIST supported biotech business development in Silver Spring and a state-of-the-art electron microscope at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

• Maryland manufacturers rely on NIST products and services to check the purity of materials and gases, the efficiency of production processes, and the quality of products made with advanced manufacturing methods. For example, our Nanofabrication Facility gives researchers from industry and academia access to state-of-the-art fabrication and measurement tools with applications to nanoelectronics, photonics, microelectromechanical systems and nano-biotechnology.
• NIST has awarded nearly $1 million to Morgan State University for equipment for its Center for Research and Education in Microelectronics.
• Since FY 2020, Maryland Manufacturing Extension Partnership, part of the NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership, has received over $6.3 million in federal funds from NIST, with over $5.4 million matched in nonfederal funds, to provide programs and services to help local companies operate more efficiently, grow profitability, and create more jobs and opportunities in Maryland.

• Maryland manufacturers in this sector rely on NIST reference materials for aluminum, titanium, glass, fuels, solders, thermal analysis, polymers, composites, hydraulic systems and more to ensure small engineering tolerances and the highest quality control for parts where failure would cause catastrophic losses.
• NIST standards, calibrations and other services ensure accurate measurements of altitude and airspeed, and support remote sensing via satellites. The atomic clocks used by global positioning systems and telecommunications networks rely on precision timekeeping disseminated by NIST, starting with the NIST primary standard atomic clock.
• NIST supports deployment of the fifth generation of wireless communications including providing world-class test beds for characterizing antennas for space applications. This research helps the industry make smaller — but effective — antennas for smaller, less expensive satellites.

Response Robots

• NIST is proud to support Maryland first responders in the safe and effective use of uncrewed aerial systems (UAS). NIST’s test methods help police departments make well-informed purchases and are used by Maryland State Police, Montgomery County Police, the Prince George’s County Fire Department, and the U.S. Secret Service to support training and credentialing of UAS pilots.
• In addition, the Montgomery County Police Department uses NIST drone tests to certify pilots and train them for certain high-altitude tactics for one of the first Drone as First Responder programs on the East Coast: The UAS can be launched as soon as a 911 call is received, and response times are typically within a minute, far faster than a patrol vehicle.
• The Montgomery County Fire Department’s Bomb Squad uses NIST ground robot tests to procure robots and to train and evaluate operators. NIST has also provided support in getting some of the bomb squad’s older inspection robots operational again, saving taxpayer funds.

Communications

• From 2012 to 2022, the NIST Public Safety Communications Research Division invested more than $2 million through prize challenges, grants and contracts to Maryland companies and universities to increase the safety of first responders and their communities. This investment resulted in:

• The CommanDING Tech challenge awarded nearly $165,000 to two Maryland companies to develop improved dashboards for public safety incident command.
• NIST awarded $390,000 to the University of Maryland and the University of California to study communities that are located close to wilderness to improve evacuations in wildfires.