France A. Córdova, the former president of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, was appointed by President Obama as director of the National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation has a budget of about $7 billion and its grants fund about one fifth of all federal research at American colleges and universities.
Since leaving the presidency of Purdue in 2012, Dr. Córdova has been serving as chair of the board of regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Córdova became president of Purdue on July 16, 2007. Previously, she was chancellor and distinguished professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California at Riverside. A former NASA scientist, she also taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
The oldest of 12 children, Córdova is a graduate of Stanford University. She earned a Ph.D. in physics at the California Institute of Technology.