Engineering

A man in safety gear crouches to examine a damaged wall inside a building after an earthquake.

The Highs and Lows of Studying the Aftermath of One of Turkey’s Deadliest Earthquakes

November 15, 2023

Our goal at NIST is to not only document and learn from disasters, but to also spur innovation and make recommendations to help lessen the impact of the next

Two women in hiking gear stands at the top of a canyon, which is in the background.

Speeding Up Carbon Capture: A Q&A With NIST Scientist Pamela Chu

August 24, 2022

She explains what NIST is doing to speed up the chemical reactions — and the innovations — that might help slow down climate change.

Jeffrey Fong poses smiling in front of a railing overlooking a concrete dam.

My Journey From Designing Dams to Helping Structures Live Their Longest Lives

August 4, 2022

Jeffrey Fong writes about how his personal drive for safe engineering design led him to work at NIST.

Creating and Commercializing the NIST RoboCrane

November 3, 2021

The RoboCrane — now hard at work at the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear cleanup sites — is a good example of a successfully commercialized technology invented

50 Years of the ‘Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data’: A Q&A With Editors Allan Harvey and Don Burgess

June 16, 2021

Reference data’s connection to the public is indirect yet often very important. For example, a town’s electricity could come from a steam power plant in which

Search and Rescue Robotics: A Q&A With NIST's Adam Jacoff

May 7, 2021

Adam Jacoff has been a robotics research engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) since 1988. His research has focused on

3D Printing With Light: A Q&A With NIST's Callie Higgins

May 3, 2021

Callie Higgins is a materials research engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). She studies a special branch of additive

The NIST Summer Undergraduate Fellowship Program Goes Virtual

February 2, 2021

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) designed the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Program to inspire undergraduate students

Internships in the Time of COVID: A Q&A With Shelby Platner and NIST's Zach Trautt

February 4, 2021

Across the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), internships are a very important experience for students and staff members alike. But for most

Need Some Good News? NIST’s 2020 Highlights

December 22, 2020

2020 has been a challenging year, but we at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have worked as hard as we can to fulfill our mission for

Journeying From Laboratory Research to Documentary Standards

March 24, 2020

“Wow, that’s cool, but the meter was defined a long time ago, so what is really there for you to do?” This is the response I get from people when I tell them

Women in STEM: Igniting Young Minds, Illuminating the Future

March 19, 2020

I am a research chemist and lab officer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). From November 2019 to February 2020, I worked as an

Operation Tech Transfer

March 10, 2020

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a world-class research organization. We have phenomenal scientists and engineers with impeccable

Top 7 NIST Visuals of 2019

December 17, 2019

Science, while important, is often thought of as, well, kind of dry in the ocular department. The visuals commonly associated with scientific endeavors are

When a Manufacturer Asks ‘How Do We Get Smart?’

October 4, 2019

“How do we get smart?” I was first asked this question while sitting in on a call with a small manufacturer who supplied parts for automotive manufacturers

Improving the Quality of Life through Smart Cities and Internet of Things Innovation

June 11, 2019

How It All Started Six years ago, I joined the U.S. federal government as a Presidential Innovation Fellow. The White House established the program to bring in

a stylized rendering of the periodic table

The Periodic Table: It's More than Just Chemistry and Physics

May 28, 2019

This is the International Year of the Periodic Table, and while I’ve been (accurately) accused of being a physics fanboy, I’m here to tell you that this famous

What To Do When Measurement Methods Produce Different Answers

April 2, 2019

What are you looking to measure? This is one of the central questions for a metrologist (a measurement scientist) and is usually answered before measurements

That House on the Hill: Bringing Measurement Science Home

February 21, 2019

When people ask NIST employees what they do, we often rely on the somewhat nebulous term “measurement science.” To many in the technical community, NIST’s role

Top NIST Images of 2018

February 6, 2019

There’s nothing quite like a captivating image to make you want to learn more. And nowhere is that more apparent than when it comes to sometimes hard-to

Reason and Measurement, Suits and Ties: My Personal Journey to the New SI

October 30, 2018

On Nov. 16, 2018, the General Conference on Weights and Measures, the governing body of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, will hold a gathering

Flying Drones Compete to Complete Unprecedented Feat

August 1, 2018

Whether it’s the effort to redefine the kilogram or researching the Harry Potter realm of quantum mechanics where things can somehow be in two or more places at

Proving Our Mettle: NIST and the Boltzmann Constant Competition

December 21, 2017

How tall are you? How old? How much do you weigh? Do you care? Is it important to you that the measurements for height, age and weight are accurate? What about

Image of a napkin that has written on it the names of researchers involved in the project and their guesses for the value of Planck's Constant

A Massive Bet: The Planck Napkin

August 25, 2017

So, a bunch of metrologists walk into a bar. In late December 2013, a group of NIST researchers met at the local watering hole across the street from NIST’s

Printing with Concrete: How I Spent My Summer Vacation

September 4, 2017

Since they came out a few years ago, the capabilities of commercially available 3-D printers have radically expanded. At first, they could only print little

‘W’eird Signals: Listening in on the Eclipse

August 15, 2017

Two years ago, I had never heard of the WWVB radio station. Today, it’s one of my favorites, but that’s not because it broadcasts a pleasant mix of Top 40 hits

Carbon Nanotubular: SURFing into the Sciences

May 5, 2017

I’m a bit of a romantic when it comes to science. When anyone asks what inspires me to be a scientist, I tell them that it’s amazing to add to the collective

Making 'The Technology' for Exoskeletons a Reality

February 28, 2017

I grew up in a small farming community in southern Georgia. My main exposure to new technology was through the annual farm equipment exposition, science fiction

Taking Measure