NASA’s Artemis project aims to establish a long-term human presence on the moon—and then put astronauts on Mars. So in addition to designing rockets and spacesuits, NASA is also exploring the ethical and societal implications of living in space. In the third episode of our Science Policy IRL series, Zach Pirtle, who got his undergraduate degrees in engineering and philosophy at Arizona State University, explains how he came to work in the agency’s Office of Technology Policy and Strategy, where he recently organized a seminar on space ethics. He also works as a program executive within the Science Mission Directorate working on commercial lunar payload services. Zach joins Issues editor-in-chief Lisa Margonelli to talk about how he almost accidentally found his way to a perfect career, and how agencies engage hands-on in science policy as they figure out how to implement legislation.   Is there something about science policy you’d like us to explore? Let us know by emailing us at [email protected], or by tagging us on social media with the hashtag #SciencePolicyIRL. Resources: Presidential Management Fellows Program National Academies’ Mirzayan Fellowship AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships Daniel Sarewitz, emeritus co-director at ASU’s Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes NASA Artemis Artemis, Ethics and Society: Synthesis from a Workshop NASA named best place to work in the federal government How Would You Defend the Planet From Asteroids? –an Issues article by Mahmud Farooque and Jason Kessler 

By day, Erica Fuchs is a professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. However, for the past year she’s also been running a pilot project—the National Network for Critical Technology Assessment—to give the federal government the ability to anticipate problems in supply chains and respond to them.  The trip from germ of a policy idea to pilot project in the National Science Foundation’s new Technology Implementation and Partnerships directorate has been a wild ride. And it all started when she developed her thoughts on the need for a national technology strategy into a 2021 Issues essay. Two years later, the network she called for, coordinating dozens of academics, industry, and government contributors to uniquely understand how different supply chains work, was a real, NSF-funded pilot project. In this episode of The Ongoing Transformation, Erica talks with Lisa Margonelli about how she took her idea from a white paper to the White House, and the bipartisan political support that was necessary to bring it to fruition.   Resources Erica Fuchs for Issues in Science and Technology: What a National Technology Strategy Is—and Why the United States Needs One. National Network for Critical Technology Assessment: Securing America’s Future report on the pilot project. The National Science Foundation’s press release on the pilot project report. Erica Fuch’s white paper for the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution: Building the Analytic Capacity to Support Critical Technology Assessment.  

Early in his career, Apurva Dave was an oceanographer; now he works at the cutting edge of climate policy at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. As the director of the Academies’ Climate Security Roundtable, he convenes cross-disciplinary dialogues on “emerging, abrupt, and understudied risks” at the nexus of climate change and national security.  In this second episode in our Science Policy IRL series, Apurva joins senior editor Megan Nicholson to talk about his nonlinear path to this role, and how his hesitancy to specialize has helped him think about the complexities of interconnectedness in science and policy.    Is there something about science policy you’d like us to explore?  Let us know by emailing us at [email protected], or by tagging us on social media using the hashtag #SciencePolicyIRL.   Resources:  Climate Security Roundtable of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Global Trends 2040 (March 2021). Carol Dumaine’s essay “Redefining Security” in Issues in Science and Technology (Winter 2022). Peter Schiffer and Frederick R. Chang’s essay “Academia’s Openness Could Strengthen its Partnerships With the Intelligence Community” in Issues in Science and Technology (Summer 2023). AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowships

Stuart Buck has referred to himself as a venture capitalist for making science more efficient, reliable, and accountable. As vice president at the policy-focused philanthropy Arnold Ventures, he directed funds toward fledgling enterprises that are now major forces shaping scientific norms and infrastructure, including the Center for Open Science and Retraction Watch. He’s now executive director of the Good Science Project, a nonprofit organization working to figure out effective ways to improve science. Buck considers how to make sure that reforms are actually improvements, not performative busywork. He explores what sorts of entities are required to push for positive change in science and still respect the different cultures and practices in various countries and disciplines. It’s not enough to assess scientific practices, he argues; there needs to be a built-in way to assess scientific reforms, including the relative costs and benefits of increasingly popular policies like sharing data and promoting transparency. In this context, Buck joins host Monya Baker to discuss how metascience—the study of science—has fueled reform, and how to make sure reforms produce the desired effects. Resources: Stuart Buck’s recent essay on his work at Arnold Ventures: “Metascience Since 2012: A Personal History” Stuart Buck, “Beware performative reproducibility,” Nature (July 6, 2021)

Since 1984, Issues in Science and Technology has been a journal for science policy—a space to discuss how to best use science for the benefit of society. But what is science policy, exactly? Our new podcast series, Science Policy IRL, explores what science policy is and how it gets done. “Science” is often caricatured as a lone person in a lab, but the work of science is supported by a community of people who engineer its funding, goals, coordination, and dissemination. They include people in legislative offices, federal agencies, national labs, universities, the National Academies, industry, and think tanks—not to mention interest groups and lobbyists.  In this series, we will explore the work of science policy by speaking to people who have built careers in it.   For the first episode in this series, host Lisa Margonelli is joined by Quinn Spadola, the deputy director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, a unique office that coordinates the development of nanotechnology across the entire federal government. Spadola, who has a Ph.D. in physics from Arizona State University,  now uses “soft power” to bring groups together to coordinate their efforts so that taxpayers get the most from their investments in science. In practice, she brings all of her life experiences to bear on the task of shaping technology so that it benefits society.  Is there something about science policy you’d like us to explore?  Let us know by emailing us at [email protected], or by tagging us on social media using the hashtag #SciencePolicyIRL.  Resources On science policy: - Harvey Brooks, “Knowledge and Action: The Dilemma of Science Policy in the ’70s,” Daedalus 102, no. 2 (Spring 1973): 125–143. - Deborah D. Stine “Science and Technology Policymaking: A Primer,” Congressional Research Service, RL34454 (May 27, 2009).  On nanotechnology: - The website of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office. - National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, A Quadrennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative: Nanoscience, Applications, and Commercialization (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2020), https://doi.org/10.17226/25729.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, hundreds of scientists fled the country and hundreds more remained behind. Those scientists who stayed are trying to continue their research and engage with the global scientific community under often difficult circumstances, with the ultimate goal of being able to help rebuild Ukraine when the war ends.  Since the early days of the war, Vaughan Turekian, the director of the Policy and Global Affairs Division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, has been leading efforts to support Ukrainian scientists and their research, enlisting the help of international science academies and philanthropic partners. Turekian has spent much of his career in science diplomacy. Before joining the Academies, he served as the fifth science and technology advisor to US Secretary of State John Kerry and was also the founding director of the Center for Science Diplomacy at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  In this episode, recorded on October 5, Turekian joins host Molly Galvin to discuss efforts to support Ukrainian scientists and why such efforts are important for the future of Ukraine.  Resources National Academies, “Supporting Ukraine’s Scientists, Engineers, and Health Care Workers.” Interview with the president of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Jerzy Duszyński, “What I’m Mostly Afraid of Is That There Will Be Two Sciences—Democratic Science and Autocratic Science,” (Issues, Summer 2022). Daniel Armanios, Jonas Skovrup Christensen, and Andriy Tymoshenko, “What Ukraine can Teach the World About Resilience and Civil Engineering” (Issues, Fall 2023).

The Green Revolution was a program of agricultural technology transfer that helped poor countries around the world increase food production from the 1950s onward. An American agronomist named Norman Borlaug developed and popularized the central innovation of this revolution: the concept of “wide adaptation,” or the idea that plants could be bred to produce a high yield in a variety of environments, rather than in a particular region. Borlaug’s work won him the Nobel Prize in 1970, and his agricultural insights are often credited with saving millions of people from hunger. But the legacy of Borlaug and the Green Revolution is not as straightforward as these accolades suggest.  In this episode, we caught up with interdisciplinary scientist and historian Marci Baranski to discuss her new book, The Globalization of Wheat: A Critical History of the Green Revolution. She talks with host Jason Lloyd about how a more nuanced understanding of the Green Revolution and Borlaug’s work can improve agricultural and economic development policies today. Resources: Marci Baranski’s book, The Globalization of Wheat: A Critical History of the Green Revolution Madhumita Saha’s book review, “Left Behind by the Green Revolution” (Issues, Summer 2023) Marci Baranski and Mary Ollenberger’s essay, “How to Improve the Social Benefits of Agricultural Research” (Issues, Spring 2020)

A decade ago, University of Virginia psychology professor Brian Nosek cofounded an unusual nonprofit, the Center for Open Science. It’s been a cheerleader, enabler, and nagger to convince scientists that making their methods, data, and papers available to others makes for better science.  The Center for Open Science has built tools to register analysis plans and hypotheses before data are collected. It campaigns for authors and journals to state explicitly whether and where data and other research materials are available. Gradually, practices that were considered fringe are becoming mainstream. The White House declared 2023 the Year of Open Science.  Nosek refers to the pyramid of culture change as his strategy to push for reforms: first make a better practice possible, then easy, expected, rewarding, and finally, required. It starts with building infrastructure, then experience, reward systems, and ultimately policy.  In this podcast, Brian Nosek joins host Monya Baker to discuss the movement of scientific ideals toward reality. Resources: Center for Open Science Transparency and Openness Guidelines Reproducibility Project: Psychology Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology Pyramid of Social Change

There is more life in the ocean than anywhere else on Earth. Accounting for over 70% of the planet’s surface, the ocean provides habitat to millions of species, supplies freshwater and oxygen, moderates the climate, and influences the weather. But despite its importance, the ocean is largely unexplored and often misunderstood.  There is growing interest in how art can help people connect with ocean research. The National Academy of Sciences is hosting an immersive video installation called Blue Dreams by Rebecca Rutstein and the Ocean Memory Project. Inspired by the vast microbial networks in the deep sea, the installation is the product of a collaboration between an artist and four scientists. From abstract imagery to stunning undersea video footage and computer modeling, Blue Dreams offers a glimpse into the interconnections and resilience of microbes, our planet’s smallest yet most vital living systems. In this episode, host Alana Quinn is joined by artist Rebecca Rutstein and one of her collaborators, the oceanographer Mandy Joye, to discuss their work and the rich potential of partnerships between artists and scientists to create visceral connections to the deep sea. Resources Register for the DC Art Science Evening Rendezvous at the National Academy of Sciences building in Washington, DC, on September 7, 2023, to meet Rebecca Rutstein, Mandy Joye, and their collaborators Jody Deming and Tom Skalak. Download the Blue Dreams catalog to learn more about the immersive video installation on view through September 15, 2023, at the NAS building, 2101 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC. Visit Rebecca Rutstein’s website to learn more about her artistic practice. Watch her Blue Dreams video here. Visit the Joye Research Group website to learn more about Mandy Joye’s research.

Over the last 40 years, US and Chinese scientists at all levels have been engaged in broad-based diplomacy, publishing hundreds of thousands of scientific papers together. Recently, amid tensions between the two countries and official and unofficial government actions to curtail collaboration, joint publications have fallen. Ernest Moniz, Secretary of Energy during the Obama administration, has been a practitioner of science diplomacy at the highest levels. Trained as a physicist, Moniz worked with his Iranian counterpart, Ali Salehi, on the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015.   In this episode, Moniz talks about the ways that science can provide a common language and a sense of trust during diplomatic negotiations. And he emphasizes the importance of collaboration to scientific discovery. Science, he says, is cumulative, extending far beyond the experience of a single person. If collaborations are prevented, we will never know what knowledge we failed to create.    Moniz is president and CEO of the Energy Futures Initiative and CEO and co-chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. He served as the thirteenth US Secretary of Energy from 2013 to January 2017. He is also the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.     Resources   E. William Colglazier, “The Precarious Balance Between Research Openness and Security,” Issues in Science and Technology 39, no. 3 (Spring 2023): 87–91.   Sylvia Schwaag Serger, Cong Cao, Caroline S. Wagner, Xabier Goenaga, and Koen Jonkers, “What Do China’s Scientific Ambitions Mean for Science and the World?” Issues in Science and Technology (April 5, 2021).