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Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Sandia President Says Lab Can Help Solve Nation's Problems

By Sue Major Holmes/
Associated Press
      The president of Sandia National Laboratories says the United States is facing challenges in everything from having enough energy to making cyberspace secure, and that the lab plays a role in finding solutions.
    Tom Hunter, in a wide-ranging 2008 State of the Lab speech Tuesday, touched on the federal weapons lab's work in areas outside its main focus on the nation's nuclear stockpile.
    And he said New Mexico is in a unique position to help the nation solve those problems. Although it's a small state, it has a higher investment in research and development than anywhere else in the nation.
    "We view New Mexico as an absolute pivot point in the future of the nation's science and technology," he said.
    He urged New Mexicans to commit to a future in which the state "is not following the norm of the nation but setting the standard for the nation, one in which the nation looks to us as the center of many things in the science and technology arena."
    "New Mexico has a rich foundation in science and engineering and one we can build on very easily," Hunter said. "Sandia will play a part in that. Sandia has chosen to be a national player in where we go in science and engineering. We have chosen to be a prominent player in where it goes in the future in national security."
    Cybersecurity is one example. Hunter noted 9 million people a year have their identities stolen in cyberspace, but said the cyberthreat "runs from hackers ... to nation states, and it runs all through our systems."
    In addition, he said that in the modern world everyone wants to know "what's everybody doing, where are they going, are they a threat, what should we do about those threats?"
    Those questions mean responding with new technology. Sandia has developed everything from a "sniffer portal" used at airports to check for explosives residue to advances in high performance computing.
    Sandia also works on problems posed by the nation's fragile and aging bridges, roads and other infrastructure, such as figuring out how to move people and goods if a bridge on a major interstate goes down, Hunter said.
    A civil engineering society study of infrastructure gave the nation a grade of D, and it's estimated the U.S. infrastructure needs a $1.6 trillion upgrade, he said.
    "We have to know that when we pick up a phone that the person we called is there and we know that's who we're talking to," Hunter said. "We have to know that when we go to a bank about our deposits that we're really talking to our bank and that someone hasn't already been there and taken all our funds. We have to know that our large information systems that have an important proprietary nature for industry or other places, that they haven't been taken over by other people. We have to make sure our infrastructure is secure so we can get on our bridges, we can get on our roads, things will work."

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