Keeping on tops of the news

I know I haven't kept on top of my posts. Its because I recently started the Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellowship in Washington DC and I have been incredibly busy learning how the National Academies work. For those of you that aren't familiar... well... its complicated.

Maybe that's not a fair statement. I don't actually feel that the National Academies is very complicated in the big picture, but climbing into the beast and working with the nuts and bolts was a bit daunting the first couple weeks. The big picture (in my own words) is that the National Academies is a for-hire organization of truth-seekers. You call the National Academies when you want a non-partisan, scientifically-based study and you want recommendations for solutions to a question or a problem.

Here's an example - 

Let us say the US Dept of Energy wants to start using more Nuclear Power. Great. More people, more power, no problem. Let's start building... WRONG!


There's a ton of questions to answer first. Scientific, social, security, environmental, and definitely political. Before a politician or a contractor starts signing proposals, he or she would want to know if a nuclear power plant is feasible to build and where it could be built. Would it affect the waterways? Where would waste go? Is there a disaster plan? What about workers? I mean, the power plant would need specialized workers... would a small town in the midwest attract enough of those specialized workers? And even if you could build it safely and hire the manpower to run the facility, do you really need all that energy? What do you do with surplus? Can you store it in batteries? Ship it to neighboring cities? Wouldn't that require a whole new energy grid infrastructure?

*Trumpets Sound*
*Enter "The National Academies"*
They aren't the only ones that can study and answer these kinds of questions, but they are well-known for their expertise in a wide array of scientific topics and for their integrity. In fact, their entire image is built on the concept that they search for unbiased evidence-based answers. Moreover, all of their findings are free and open to the public, which makes their process, reporting, and recommendations very transparent. The public likes transparency.

So you hire a board or a committee in the National Academies to form a study based on questions like the ones above and they bring in all kinds of experts in various fields of science, law, and medicine to discuss. At the end, they produce a report to outline their findings and recommendations.

I really love being a part of this program because it has already taught me the utility of detailed sciences in a big picture scenario. At the science bench, I felt a bit disconnected from the fuller picture of what my science would accomplish, but in the academies, I feel empowered with the idea that I may be able to help others understand and reach major decisions by structuring the questions and answers to big complex problems.

Its a tremendous feeling, albeit a busy moment in my career.