AIP sponsors Dufty in the State Department

“I am in the middle of a steep learning curve. My days are full,” says James Dufty, the American Institute of Physics’ eighth State Department fellow.

Dufty is working for a year in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, where he serves as a liaison between the US government and the natural sciences and social and human sciences sectors of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). A theoretical physicist who has been on the faculty of the University of Florida for 35 years, Dufty says he chose the bureau because “it was an opportunity to come in where there was a vacuum. I have come to an office where I am the only person with a science background.”

UNESCO is in the process of reviewing its two science sectors and drafting a strategy for the next six years. One aim is to organize the science sectors in a more interdisciplinary way. “My role is to help communicate what US policy would be, and to make sure that the restructuring is consistent with US objectives,” says Dufty. For example, “there could be a resolution on having an ethical policy developed by UNESCO for science.” Such a resolution could provide guidance for safety and commercialization standards in areas such as nanoscience. Ethics is not an easy issue, says Dufty. “We want to bring potential problems under control, but we don’t want to stifle research.”

Not surprisingly, liaising between the US government and UNESCO doesn’t involve the kinds of condensed-matter calculations Dufty usually does. But, he says, “I think the point is that someone in the sciences has a perspective that is different from someone who came up in the foreign or civil service.”

“I wanted to contribute to the State Department,” continues Dufty. “But I also want to go home and talk to my colleagues who, I think, have very little understanding of how policy is made.”