Science Fellows Lend Expertise While Learning Politics

In 1973, Jessica Tuchman Mathews was a promising young biochemist, with a departmental chair or a leadership role at a biotechnology company in her future. But she believed there were gaps in her knowledge of how science fit into society, and curiosity got the better of her. “I had this feeling that I should see what I was missing,” she says. So Mathews left academia and traveled to Washington, D.C., as one of the first Congressional Science and Engineering Fellows sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The move changed her, life. Mathews, cofounder and now vice president of the World Resources Institute, is still working in the nation’s capital, as are many of the scientists who followed in her footsteps. Mathews says that her arrival along with six other fellows 16 years ago more than doubled the number of Ph.D.’s then working in Congress. Now Capitol Hill is sprinkled with scientists turned policymakers, many of whom, like Mathews, got their start as fellows. Of the more than 400 fellows, one third are still on Capitol Hill, and a third more never went back into science. AAAS sponsors five fellowship programs that bring scientists of varying levels—from postdoctoral to midcareer—to the nation’s capital for a hands-on, inside look at the federal government. The Congressional Science and Engineering Fellows Program includes a few AAAS fellows, plus others sponsored by 20 societies and the congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). In 1980 AAAS began what is now its largest program, the Science, Engineering and Diplomacy Fellows Program. This year, for the first time, the new Executive Branch Science and Engineering Fellows Program put a scientist in the White House. With support from the MacArthur Foundation, AAAS places about six Science, Arms Control, and National Security Fellows in Congress and in the Executive Branch. Fellows in these four programs stay a year, while a fifth program, the Environmental Science and Engineering Fellows, provides a 10-week summer research experience at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Nor are these AAAS-run fellowships the only ones available to scientists and health professionals. Since 1974 the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has brought 90 Health Policy Fellows to Washington to work with government leaders. The American Political Science Association also sponsors congres sional fellows, usually from the political and social sciences, and invites federal agencies to send managers to Washington for a year-long congressional stint. Each year the Industrial Research Institute places an experienced scientist from one of its 250 companies as a senior policy adviser in the executive branch’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. Sea Grant colleges offer a fellowship program for graduate students. “It brings us a real depth of information that we, the permanent staff, don’t have,” says Michael Rodemeyer, staff director of the House Subcommittee on Natural Resources, Agriculture Research and Environment of the Science, Space and Technology Committee. Congressional offices and committees compete for fellows, and other agencies make good use of them, sometimes permanently. For example, OTA counts 15 ex-fellows among its 200-person staff and finds that even rejected applicants to the fellowship make viable job candidates. The fellows feel they make a big difference. Ecologist David Blockstein showed up in 1987 determined to do something to stem the rate of extinction of plants and animals. He hooked up with Rep. James Scheuer (D-N.Y), who chairs the House agriculture research subeommittee. He and another former fellow, Eileen Lee, prepared the National Biological Diversity Conservation and Environmental Research Act (HR. 1268), which may be taken up by the full committee this fall. “He made a tremendous contribution,” says Charles M. Chambers, executive director of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, Blockstein’s sponsoring society. “This is our way of building a cadre of scientists who are literate in the political process.” That Blockstein was able to work in his special areas of expertise is unusual. “The way it works in Congress, it’s very rare to be an expert in one focused area,” says Claudia Sturges, a senior program associate with the AAAS Office of Public Sector Programs. A 1988-89 fellow, Jay Siegel, associate professor of forensic science at Michigan State University in East Lansing, tracked global warming and high-technology issues for Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and helped write bills concerning tax credits for radon testing, for an EPA survey of radon in schools, and on natural resources conservation. Pediatrician Michael David Miller, the first AAAS executive fellow, worked in the Office of Management and Budget on such issues as AIDS, medical effectiveness, and leprosy. No matter what they do, the experience leaves its mark. In the case of marine biologist Tim Brand, it led to a new job with the state department that pays almost double the salary he was making four years ago. He is now a foreign affairs officer who helps decide what technologies should not be transferred to unfriendly countries. “As a science expert, you’re a unique resource in the government, especially in the state department,” says Brand. “They really need people with scientific backgrounds who can function in a bureaucracy.” “You’ve got to behave in ways that scientists aren’t used to,” says Alan Robock, 1986 fellow and associate professor of meteorology at the University of Maryland. Whether they stay or leave, the fellows develop new attitudes toward science and politics. “I learned about an entirely different world,” says Blockstein. “I guess I did share the scientific naivete that people here in the political system were searching for the true answers. I found that in a lot of instances that was not the case.” In government, where decisions must be made before all the data are in, neatly packaged answers are rarely the norm. Miller says: “Anything less than $50 million was an asterisk [in the budget].” The AAAS fellows start the year with a two-week orientation in early September that introduces them to ways of Washington. They learn about the three branches of government, the budget process, the National Academy of Sciences, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, world affairs, arms control, environmental issues, and science and technology policy. They then interview for specific staff positions and usually have their pick of several slots. While congressional, executive, and arms control fellows concentrate on what is going on inside Washington, diplomacy fellows take a broader view. “They come to us because they are interested in an international experience,” says Howard Minners, science adviser to the Agency for International Development (MD). “They need to be flexible, broad-based, and interested in international things.” Two or three diplomacy fellows spend their Washington tenure at the State Department, while the rest work for AID. Many get to travel abroad. That program has since expanded to become the largest that AAAS administers. AID began with one or two fellows; this fall 18 new fellows will join 10 others who stayed on for a second year. AID picks scientists who match particular program needs, often in agriculture, population, energy, health, or forestry. The $4.4 million Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program provides a chance for midcareer professionals from academic health settings to take part in federal policy-making. Candidates are nominated by their institutions and then chosen by a board coordinated through the Institute of Medicine. Each September, about six fellows begin a two-month orientation, during which they discuss health issues with staff from the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services, Congress, and health interest groups. They also spend three weeks being guided by the American Political Science Association through the congressional maze. For the next nine months, they research health issues, draft legislation, help constituents or members of Congress with health issues, or write speeches. Although societies select their own fellows, all, participants must have their doctorates and have demonstrated competence in their scientific specialty. They need to be cognizant of political and social issues and have an interest in applying their knowledge to social problems. Stipends range from $25,000 to $40,000; the average is $30,000. There’s stiff competition, and many apply for several fellowships at once. In 1989,93 applied for two AAAS Congressional Fellows slots; 77 wanted to be the sole Executive Fellow; and 115 applied for the Diplomacy Fellowships, of which there were 21. For 1990, OTA picked three fellows from 148 applicants. The six Robert Wood Johnson Foundation fellows come from a pool of about 30 nominated by their home institutions. “The thing we really look for is breadth,” says Sturges. “Are you willing to look broadly at the world?” The power is seductive, but the experience can be shocking. Some Health Policy Fellows are medical school chairmen who suddenly find themselves crowded into small offices doing all their own typing and photocopying. “You have to come here and accept the Washington system as it is and your role in it,” says Blockstein, even if that means getting coffee for your congressman.

Science Fellows Lend Expertise While Learning Politics

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