The Ongoing Transformation

This has been a record-breaking summer all over the world. Many cities have recorded their hottest days ever, and June 2024 was the hottest month on record worldwide. Mitigating and adapting to the impacts of climate change, including extreme heat and long summers, will require a lot of bold new ideas.  This summer, we’re highlighting some of those ideas in a mini podcast series, Cool Ideas for a Long, Hot Summer. Over four mini-episodes, we’ll explore how faculty members at ASU’s Global Futures Lab are working with communities to develop cool techniques and technologies for dealing with climate change.  In the first mini-episode, host Kimberly Quach is joined by ASU assistant professor Danae Hernandez-Cortes. Danae shares how economics can be used to advance environmental justice and how policies can affect communities who are most harmed by climate change.  Resources:  Visit Danae Hernandez-Cortes’s website to learn more about environmental economics and environmental justice. 

Since 1973, the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellowship (STPF) has brought thousands of scientists and engineers into the policy world. The fellowship is a very popular pathway into science policy, and AAAS fellows have featured in several episodes of our Science Policy IRL series.  In this episode, we talk with the STPF fellowship director, Rashada Alexander. After completing a chemistry PhD and postdoc, she applied for an STPF fellowship that placed her inside the National Institutes of Health, where she worked for 10 years.  Alexander talks to us about how her fellowship experience helped her look up from the lab bench and find meaning in her life. In particular, she found ways to build relationships, learn how to read a room, and navigate organizational structures—skills that are not always valued in scientific labs. She explains why scientists and engineers should apply for this transformational experience.  Resources:  Learn more about the AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowship.  Applications are now open for the 2025–2026 STPF cohort. Apply by November 1.  Want to hear more about how fellowships can help launch scientists into a career in policy? Listen to our episodes with Quinn Spadola (another AAAS fellow) and Zach Pirtle (a Presidential Management Fellow).  Are you doing science policy? Take our survey!

Most people are familiar with DNA, but its cousin, RNA, has become widely known only recently. In 2020, of course, RNA was in the news all the time: the COVID-19 virus is made of RNA, as are the vaccines to combat it. Technologies based on RNA could lead to innovations in biology, medicine, agriculture, and beyond, but researchers have only scratched the surface of understanding what RNA is capable of.  A new report from the National Academies, Charting a Future for Sequencing RNA and Its Modifications: A New Era for Biology and Medicine, proposes an ambitious road map for coordinated projects to understand RNA. This large-scale effort is inspired by what was achieved for DNA two decades ago by the Human Genome Project.  On this episode, host Monya Baker is joined by Lydia Contreras, professor of chemical engineering at the University of Texas, Austin, and one of the authors of the report. Contreras talks about what RNA is, the challenges and potential of this effort, and what lessons could be learned from previous efforts with the Human Genome Project.  Resources:  Read the full National Academies report: Charting a Future for Sequencing RNA and Its Modifications: A New Era for Biology and Medicine. Visit the Contreras Research Lab website to learn more about Lydia Contreras’s work.  Retrospectives on the Human Genome Project.

In this podcast, experts discuss transitioning to cleaner energy technologies, including the challenges and potential of the green transition. They explore the role of government support, advancements in green tech, and the balance between pragmatism and idealism in decarbonization efforts.

On this installment of Science Policy IRL, Lisa Margonelli goes behind the scenes of Congressional policymaking with Brent Blevins. Blevins is a senior congressional staffer and staff director of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, which is part of the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Space, Science, and Technology.  Blevins talks about his unusual path into science policy (he didn’t study science, and he wasn’t a AAAS fellow!) and what staffers in the House and Senate do in the science policy world. He also talks about the incredible experience of getting to set policy for things like sending humans to Mars while also having a staff job that can end with any two-year election cycle. Resources: Want to learn more about what it’s like to work as a congressional staffer? Check out our Science Policy IRL episode with Amanda Arnold.  Learn more about the House Science Committee by visiting the House Republicans Science Committee website and the House Democrats Science Committee website. The Senate version of this committee is called the Senate Committee on Science, Commerce and Transportation.  Have thoughts you want to share with Blevins? He tells us his email in the episode, and he really wants to hear from you! Listen to the end of the episode to get his email.

Caregiving is a nearly universal human experience, but it’s not often thought of as an issue with implications for our nation’s science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) enterprise. A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Supporting Family Caregivers in STEMM: A Call to Action, seeks to change that. In some academic STEMM environments, devoting time to care for family members is still seen as a taboo subject because it clashes with the idealized notion of scientists who focus exclusively on their work. The lack of legal and institutional support for caregivers drives many people to leave STEMM fields altogether. What can be done to change this inequity? On this episode, Issues editor Sara Frueh talks to Elena Fuentes-Afflick, chair of the report committee and a professor of pediatrics and vice dean for the School of Medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital at the University of California San Francisco. Fuentes-Afflick talks about the pressures of balancing caregiving with a STEMM career; how complex and poorly implemented policies are hurting workers and the economy; and steps that the government, universities, and others could take to make a difference. Resources: Read the Supporting Family Caregivers in STEMM: A Call to Action report and find more resources.  Learn more about federal policies and practices to support STEMM caregivers by reading the National Science and Technology Council’s report.  Find more of Elena Fuentes-Afflick’s work on her website. 

Kei Koizumi, Principal Deputy Director at the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, discusses the vital role of OSTP in advising the president on S&T matters, shaping federal research funding, and global cooperation for AI governance. He shares insights on transitioning from AAAS, advocating for research funding, and promoting inclusive science policy.

When tackling the problem of misinformation, people often think first of content and its accuracy. But countering misinformation by fact-checking every erroneous or misleading claim traps organizations in an endless game of whack-a-mole. A more effective approach may be to start by considering connections and communities. That is particularly important for public health, where different people are vulnerable in different ways.  On this episode, Issues editor Monya Baker talks with global health professionals Tina Purnat and Elisabeth Wilhelm about how public health workers, civil society organizations, and others can understand and meet communities’ information needs. Purnat led the World Health Organization’s team that strategized responses to misinformation during the coronavirus pandemic. She is also a coeditor of the book Managing Infodemics in the 21st Century. Wilhelm has worked in health communications at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF, and USAID.  Resources  Visit Tina Purnat and Elisabeth Wilhelm’s websites to learn more about their work and find health misinformation resources.  Check out Community Stories Guide to explore how public health professionals can use stories to understand communities’ information needs and combat misinformation.  How is an infodemic manager like a unicorn? Visit the WHO Infodemic Manager Training website to find training resources created by Purnat and Wilhelm, and learn about the skills needed to become an infodemiologist.

Amanda Arnold, VP at Valneva, discusses vaccine policy, neglected diseases, global distribution, and career transitions with a focus on supporting the innovation ecosystem in science policy.

Douglas Duncan is an astronomer who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. He is also an eclipse fanatic. Since 1970, he has been to 11 total solar eclipses. When April 8, 2024, comes around, he’ll experience his twelfth with his 600 best friends as he leads a three-day eclipse viewing extravaganza in Texas. “It looks like the end of the world,” he says, and a total eclipse can be a source of intense fascination. He uses the emotional experience of the eclipse as a gateway to learning more about science.  On this episode, Lisa Margonelli talks to Duncan about how he has used this sense of experiential wonder, particularly in planetariums, as a way to invite the public into the joy of science. In previous generations, planetariums were seen as “old fashioned” and isolated from the work of modern astronomers. But Duncan pioneered a career track that combined public teaching at a planetarium with a faculty position at the University of Colorado. Now many planetariums have become places where academic astronomers can share their knowledge with the public.  Resources:  Visit Doug Duncan’s website to learn more about his work.  Read about his work at NASA.  Want to photograph the solar eclipse? Duncan has made an app for that called Solar Snap.  Learn more about using eclipses to engage the public.  See the itinerary for Duncan’s “Totality Over Texas” trip, which will be attended by 600 people. The trip offers three days of eclipse-related activities.