Credit: Amanda Joy Mason/NSF
Dr. Erwin Gianchandani
Assistant Director of the Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships
Dr. Erwin Gianchandani is the U.S. National Science Foundation’s assistant director for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships, leading the newly established TIP Directorate.
Gianchandani has worked at NSF since 2012. Prior to becoming the assistant director for TIP, he served as the senior advisor for Translation, Innovation and Partnerships for over a year, where he helped develop plans for the new TIP Directorate in collaboration with colleagues at NSF, other government agencies, industry and academia.
During the previous six years, Gianchandani was the NSF deputy assistant director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, twice serving as acting assistant director for CISE. Gianchandani’s leadership and management of CISE included the formulation and implementation of the directorate's $1 billion annual budget, strategic and human capital planning, and oversight of day-to-day operations for a team of over 130.
Gianchandani has led the development and launch of several new NSF initiatives, including the Smart & Connected Communities program, Civic Innovation Challenge, Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research, and the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes.
Before joining NSF in 2012, Gianchandani was the inaugural director of the Computing Community Consortium, providing leadership to the computing research community in identifying and pursuing bold, high-impact research directions such as health information technology and sustainable computing.
Gianchandani has published extensively and presented at international conferences on computational systems biology. He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and master's and doctoral degrees in biomedical engineering, all from the University of Virginia.
In 2021, Gianchandani received the Distinguished Presidential Rank Award, awarded to members of the Federal Government’s Senior Executive Service for sustained extraordinary accomplishment. In 2018, he was awarded the Outstanding Young Engineering Graduate Award from the University of Virginia.
Brief Biography
Erwin Gianchandani is the U.S. National Science Foundation’s assistant director for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP), leading the newly established TIP Directorate. Prior to becoming the assistant director for TIP, he served as the senior advisor for Translation, Innovation and Partnerships, where he helped develop plans for the new TIP directorate in collaboration with colleagues at NSF, other government agencies, industry, and academia. During the previous six years, Gianchandani was the NSF deputy assistant director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), twice serving as acting assistant director. Before joining NSF in 2012, Gianchandani was the inaugural director of the Computing Community Consortium, providing leadership to the computing research community in identifying and pursuing bold, high-impact research directions such as health information technology and sustainable computing. Gianchandani holds a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Virginia. In 2021, Gianchandani received the Distinguished Presidential Rank Award, awarded to members of the Federal Government’s Senior Executive Service for sustained extraordinary accomplishment.
Graciela (Gracie) Narcho
Deputy Assistant Director of the Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships
Graciela (Gracie) Narcho is the U.S. National Science Foundation's deputy assistant director of the Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships, or TIP.
Narcho has been with NSF for nearly three decades, serving in a broad range of roles spanning the development of the TIP Directorate, grants and agreements oversight, program management, and diversity and inclusion efforts.
Narcho is known as a change agent for positive human capital reforms, business practice innovations, and NSF policy development. Together with colleagues across NSF, Narcho has helped develop and launch several NSF initiatives, including the industry-government partnerships for the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes program, the Global Environment for Networking Innovation, or GENI, the Computing Community Consortium, or CCC, and Computer and Information Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowships, or CSGrad4US.
As an NSF grants official, Narcho developed the funding arrangement for the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation for the newly Independent States of the Former Soviet Union, the first NSF congressionally mandated, endowed, non-governmental, nonprofit foundation; and negotiated the first jointly-developed and funded government-industry Engineering Research Center.
In recent years, Narcho co-led the NSF partnerships working group, streamlining processes and procedures for NSF partnerships with industry, nonprofits, other federal agencies and international funding organizations.
Narcho has also served in senior leadership roles within two NSF Directorates. In Computer and Information Science and Engineering, or CISE, she led the largest transformation of the workforce structure and responsibilities in CISE history, resulting in a more flexible workforce. As deputy division director and acting division director for the then-Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships within the NSF Directorate for Engineering, Narcho led policy development and programs that accelerate federally funded research into market opportunities. Under Narcho's leadership, NSF initiated a new pre-submission pitch process for small businesses, providing more immediate feedback to early-stage startups.
Narcho received her bachelor's degree in economics from Tufts University and a master's in public administration from George Washington University, with a concentration in procurement and contracting.