Ben Schrag joined the U.S. National Science Foundation as an SBIR/STTR program director in 2009. Ben has worked across several portfolio areas including advanced materials, instrumentation and hardware, nanotechnology and advanced manufacturing. He became the policy liaison for the SBIR/STTR programs in 2016. Ben won the NSF Director's Award in 2014 and 2016. Prior to NSF, he was the director of research and development at Micro Magnetics, where he led a development effort to commercialize a new magnetic imaging tool for semiconductor metrology. During this time, he also served as a visiting scientist at Brown University. Ben received his doctorate in physics from Brown University.