Physics Fellows Bring Science to Policymaking

If drinking from a fire hose is your idea of a good time, a stint in the policymaking arena might be just the thing. That’s how Colin McCormick describes the flood of information he had to filter as a congressional fellow. McCormick began his fellowship in 2003 straight out of his PhD studies in nonlinear optics and is now a postdoc at NIST. He says he’d “love to find a way to do both science and policy.”

More than 100 scientists went to work in Congress and executive branch agencies this fall in an American Association for the Advancement of science program. A half dozen are physical scientists sponsored by the American Institute for Physics (AIP), which has a fellow in Congress and, with the American Astronomical society, one in the State Department; the American Physical Society (APS); the American Geophysical Union (AGU); and the Optical Society of America (OSA).

“How the sausage is made”

McCormick, who was sponsored jointly by OSA and the Materials Research Society (MRS), worked for Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) in nuclear weapons and nonproliferation and in tracking troop deployment and prison torture practices in Iraq. “My specific expertise didn’t really come into play,” he says. But for researching and writing memos, letters, talking points, and speeches, he adds, “I brought what all PhDs are supposed to have—independent work, energy, the ability to pursue something productively. A good part of the job is judgment.”

“Knowing the key players—NSF, NASA—and understanding how scientists think was really helpful,” adds Elka Koehler, who was on Senator Joseph Lieberman’s (D-CT) staff last year, sponsored by OSA and SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering. She has returned to designing optical systems for telescopes at Raytheon Systems Co in Tucson, Arizona.

As APS’s 2003–04 fellow, Adam Rosenberg hooked up with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee after completing his PhD in fusion research. Most matters related to the Department of Energy’s Office of Science “get thrown to me,” says Rosenberg. “It’s a wide variety—biotechnology, supercomputing, fusion.” In Congress, he adds, “I’ve learned how the sausage is made. How a bill becomes the law sounds basic, but a lot can go into it.” Rosenberg has extended his fellowship through the end of this year and says his Capitol Hill experience has made him “addicted to politics.”

Dave Catarious, this year’s OSA–SPIE fellow, joined Marker’s office to work on environmental and energy issues. Among his first tasks was tackling a tax loophole that benefited purchasers of large vehicles. “The tax write-off for an SUV could save people in the highest tax bracket $35 000,” while the deduction for a hybrid car was only $1500, says Catarious, a freshly minted biomedical engineering PhD. “It’s been a real education so far. At school, you work on a project for six or eight months, then you write a paper. Here, we do research and write in just a few hours. Then you pick up a newspaper and read about things, and realize, I was working on that!”

Last year’s AIP fellow, Lee Hirsch, worked on military health and NASA issues for Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA). “He wanted information about the strange things that were happening to our soldiers,” says Hirsch, who has a PhD in geophysics and experience in the classroom, industry, and the Peace Corps. “I looked into stuff like Gulf War disease, depleted uranium effects—a whole bunch of issues that can affect soldiers’ health.” Hirsch also worked closely with New Mexico Democratic Rep. Tom Udall’s office on a resolution to save the Hubble Space Telescope . Says Hirsch, “Keeping this in front of everyone’s face—that was the big one.”

Hirsch is training to become a teacher and says that, thanks to his fellowship experience, he’ll be able to “explain to students what Congress is about and how things work. I learned where science can have a role. I also learned that in a lot of cases, decisions are not based on science.”

In Lieberman’s office, Karin Ezbiansky Pavese, who is sponsored by OSA and MRS, is picking up where Koehler left off, focusing on the migration of technical jobs out of the US. “The senator feels strongly about innovation and science, and about education,” says Pavese. Before starting her fellowship, Pavese earned a PhD in inorganic chemistry and worked at General Electric. She’s not sure what she’ll do after the fellowship.

“In the thick of things”

“I’ve always had a strong sense that I wanted to connect Earth-system processes with societies and culture,” says Kevin Vranes, who recently completed his AGU-sponsored fellowship with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). As a fellow, Vranes worked on everything from climate change to legislation for safer railroad crossings. “When you deal with constituents,” he says, “you have to be open-minded and sensitive to their motivations. And tell them what they want to hear without giving away the farm.” Now teaching geology at the University of Montana, Vranes says he wants “to build an academic position that balances science and policy.”

As a staffer on the energy subcommittee of the House Science Committee, Dahlia Sokolov, AIP’s current fellow, can expect to focus more on science issues than might be the case in a Senate or House office. Her portfolio includes bioenergy and genomics. Sokolov did PhD research on breaking kidney stones with shock waves, followed by postdoctoral work in radiation oncology.

APS’s new fellow, Valerie Thomas, chose Rep. Rush Holt’s (D-NJ) office because “in the House, the staffs are small, so you are in the thick of things” and because she wanted to work on energy legislation. “Holt is a physicist. He wants to come up with a longer-term comprehensive energy policy. That’s what I get to do,” she says. Thomas’s connections to Holt go way back: As an undergraduate at Swarthmore College, she took a physics course he taught, and he has been her congressman for part of her 15 years working on arms control and energy sustainability at Princeton University. “I am really pleased to be doing this as someone who has experience under my belt, and I want to encourage other mid-career people to do it—even if it means a pay cut,” says Thomas. After the fellowship she will join Georgia Tech as an associate professor in the school of industrial and systems engineering.

Jana Davis, this year’s AGU fellow, left a tenure-track position to become a fellow in Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s (D-NJ) office. Davis expects her portfolio to include her area of expertise, shoreline erosion and its effects on ecology. Two key figures in ocean policymaking are retiring, she says, “so it will be interesting to see what happens and who picks up the reins.”