Dr. Kelvin K. Droegemeier is Professor of Climate, Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences and Special Advisor to the Chancellor for Science and Policy at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and former Director of The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
He previously spent 38 years on the faculty at the University of Oklahoma, where he served for nearly a decade as Vice President for Research. He co-founded and directed one of the first 11 NSF Science and Technology Centers NSF and co-founded an NSF Engineering Research Center. Droegemeier served as Oklahoma Cabinet Secretary for Science and Technology as well as two terms on the National Science Board, the last four years as Vice-Chairman. Most recently, he served as Director of The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Science Advisor to the President, and Acting Director of NSF. Dr. Droegemeier is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served on and chaired numerous boards, including as Chair of the UCAR and SURA Boards of Trustees, and presently serves on the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy (COSEMPUP), of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. He has testified before Congress on 13 occasions on topics ranging from high-performance computing and geopolitical factors in research to STEM education. In 2023, Droegemeier authored a book titled Demystifying the Academic Research Enterprise.