Hill fellowships offer scientists policy career path

“This is a career-changing fellowship for me,” says particle physicist Christopher Spitzer, the current American Institute of Physics (AIP) and AVS congressional fellow. Spitzer, who holds a PhD from the University of Washington in Seattle, recently began work in the office of Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), where he will assess the partnership between academic laboratories and small businesses and analyze the proposed Keystone Pipeline that would link the oil sands in Alberta, Canada, to US refineries. “Not too many people on the hill have technical backgrounds, which I think is really needed in the discussions on some of the challenging issues [the country is] facing,” he says.

Spitzer is among 210 PhD scientists and engineers undertaking one-year science and technology fellowships in Congress and at executive-branch agencies under a program managed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Dozens of professional societies and other organizations select and fund the fellows; this academic year, six are being sponsored by AIP and its member societies.

A divided Congress

Ilya Fischhoff, who earned his PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University, is one of two American Geophysical Union (AGU) fellows this year. He is working for Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) on nuclear nonproliferation, international trade, and endangered-species issues. “Like a lot of scientists, I’ve always been interested in doing science that was useful and connected to societal issues,” says Fischhoff, who monitored wildlife with local pastoralist citizen-scientists in Kenya during graduate school.

This year’s American Physical Society (APS) fellow is also a Princeton graduate. Plasma physicist Laura Berzak, a staff member for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, will focus on nuclear nonproliferation and energy issues. “It’s a very exciting time to be working on the hill,” says Berzak, who started just before the heated midterm elections. “My goal is to learn as much as I can about policy work and to gain a familiarity with the legislative process and how a scientist can be part of it.”

“There’s no question that sweeping energy legislation will be a tougher sell in this Congress,” says atomic physicist Jason Day, also sponsored by AGU. A University of Wisconsin–Madison graduate, Day is working on energy and climate change in the office of Sen. Al Franken (D-MN). After just a few weeks on the hill, he says his perspective on politics has already changed. “From the outside, you see a lot of infighting, a lot of bickering back and forth. On the inside, staffers on opposing sides of the aisle often have to work together and are usually really nice to each other.”

Also in Franken’s office is materials scientist Ashley Ann White, who is cosponsored by the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the Materials Research Society (MRS). A graduate of the University of Cambridge, White is working on the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law and on science, technology, engineering, and math education policies.

“Policymakers are good at seeing the big picture and making the necessary tradeoffs to achieve a desired goal,” says atomic physicist Marcius Extavour, who is cosponsored by OSA and SPIE. The University of Toronto graduate chose to be on the staff of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources so he could work on a smaller set of topics at greater depth than occurs in individual legislators’ offices. Extavour is working on energy-efficiency legislation and US tax-code reforms and says that he’d like to teach both policy and science courses if he returns to academia.

Making the jump

Most of the immediate past fellows are so far staying with the policy career path. Taking a permanent post on the House Committee on Science and Technology is last year’s OSA/SPIE fellow, Matthew McMahon. As a fellow, he worked on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; his legislative portfolio now includes innovation policy, technology transfer, and manufacturing. Arti Garg, one of two immediate past APS fellows, is serving in the University of California’s Office of the President as a research accountability and coordination analyst. Garg says her experience on the House Foreign Affairs Committee taught her a lot about how large organizations work—“It’s hard to get much larger than the US government.”

Still job hunting is outgoing AIP fellow Marcos Huerta. He hopes to continue work on environmental policy, his focus in the office of Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ). Huerta says his favorite moment during the fellowship was “being in the House gallery for the historic health care vote.” Outgoing OSA/MRS fellow Gavi Begtrup is now a permanent staffer in the office of another Arizona Democrat, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. With the change in House leadership, “the new Congress will offer new challenges and certainly new learning opportunities,” says Begtrup.

After working on education policy in the office of Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), outgoing AIP/Acoustical Society of America fellow Jeffrey Fox won another AAAS-managed fellowship, this time at the US State Department in the Bureau of African Affairs’ Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Outgoing AGU fellow Maeve Boland left the office of Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), now retired, for an AAAS fellowship at the US Geological Survey, where she helps track mineral resources and assess the impact of mining on the environment and on human health. The other outgoing APS fellow, Virginia Corless, now has advisory and managerial duties with two environmental nongovernmental organizations in Norway: the Sahara Forest Project and its partner, the Bellona Foundation. She says that her fellowship experience confirmed her desire to pursue a career in policy. “After a month or two working in the Senate, I realized that I looked forward to work just about every day.”

For details on sponsorship through AIP or its member societies, visit http://aip.org/gov/fellowships.html .