In December 2021, the NWS Executive Council (EC) directed OSTI to align Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences as a program under the STI portfolio, and to create a GS-15 program manager position, which will report to the OSTI director, and manage the Social, Behavioral and Economic Science (SBES) program.  

This is a very exciting opportunity for OSTI, and accordingly, we have already taken initial steps to make this high priority, organizational change a reality over the coming months. To that end, we have appointed Jennifer Sprague-Hilderbrand to serve as our Acting Social, Behavioral and Economic Science (SBES) Program Manager while we await approval of the SBES program structure, and subsequently recruit for a permanent director.

Since 2016, Jennifer Sprague-Hilderbrand has served as Senior Advisor and Social Science Program Manager in the NWS Office of Planning and Programming for Service Delivery (OPPSD). In this role, Jennifer has managed the NWS social science portfolio. Since 2016, she has served as the NWS cross-cut lead for social science within NWS’ portfolio management, representing NWS in cross-program, multi-disciplinary, and agency-wide committees and partnerships of relevance to the NWS priorities and policies.

NWS employees can expect further updates over the coming months as we proceed in spinning up this new and foundational organization capability in support of many NWS portfolios, products, and services.