Anna Krylov: The Politicization of Science in Academia — #25

Anna I. Krylov (Russian: Анна Игоревна Крылова) is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Southern California (USC), working in the field of theoretical and computational quantum chemistry.

Krylov is an outspoken advocate of freedom of speech and academic freedom. She is a founding member of the Academic Freedom Alliance and a member of its academic leadership committee. Her paper, The Peril of Politicizing Science, launched a national conversation among scientists and the general public on the growing influence of political ideology in STEM. It has received over 80,000 views and, according to Altmetric, was the all-time highest-ranked article in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

Steve and Anna discuss:

0:00 Anna Krylov’s background, upbringing in USSR

7:03 Ideological control and censorship for the greater good?

14:59 How ideology underpins DEI work in academic institutions

30:40 Captured institutions

37:05 How much is UC Berkeley spending on DEI, and where the money is going

41:46 Krylov thinks it can get worse

52:09 An idea for soliciting anonymous feedback at universities

Resources:

Professor Krylov academic page:

https://dornsife.usc.edu/chemistry/krylov/

Wiki page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Krylov

The Peril of Politicizing Science, Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 2021

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01475

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

--

Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.