News: AAAS News & Notes
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SCIENCE
POLICY
Swiss Fellowship Program Follows Lead of AAAS
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As the new science attaché to the Embassy of Switzerland in 1998, it was Johannes Kaufmann's job to visit federal agencies and congressional offices throughout the U.S. capital. No matter where he went to introduce himself, he met young scientists--either current or former AAAS science policy fellows--working as advisors to the people who make the decisions affecting science policy in the United States.
"It looked like a win-win situation,” said Kaufmann. "The government
gets scientific advice very cheap, and the network of fellows in all the agencies
helps the government find sensible solutions to scientific problems.”
In 2001, starting
with two postgraduate scientists, Switzerland plans to launch a fellowship program
in the Swiss parliament, based on the AAAS's Congressional Fellows Program.
This will be the first time
the 27-year-old AAAS program will serve as a model for a similar effort abroad.
Margrit Leuthold,
Secretary General of the Swiss Academy of Medicine, describes Kaufmann's enthusiasm
for the AAAS program as infectious.
"He was thrilled
about the benefits for science and for the parliament,” said Leuthold,
who will be in charge of the new program. The Swiss Academy of Science, the
umbrella group for the nation's four scientific societies, voted to proceed
with the Kaufmann's proposal, and the parliament's chief administrative officer
concurred with the plan this fall.
To explain the support for the program among Swiss scientists, both Leuthold and Kaufmann cite a June 1998 referendum that asked the people of Switzerland to support or reject legislation that would have prohibited any form of genetic engineering.
The referendum failed, but the experience made it clear that scientists could play a much needed role in increasing the public understanding of complex concepts. Misunderstandings "on both sides of the issue” had hindered communication, Leuthold says, adding that the process demonstrated that both scientists and politicians had more to learn about each other's worlds.
In Washington, there are now about 125 scientists and engineers participating in nine 2000-01 AAAS programs. (For information see www.fellowships.aaas.org.)
The first program--for Congressional Fellows--was launched in 1973 with a group of seven fellows. It now has 39. AAAS provides an umbrella program for all the Congressional Fellows, two of whom are selected and funded by AAAS and the remainder, by about 30 other national scientific and engineering societies. Eight additional AAAS science and technology policy fellowship programs, which were modeled on the Congressional Fellows Program, send fellows to serve a dozen federal agencies in Washington, DC.
Program director Claudia Sturges says she and her AAAS colleagues "take some pride” in watching the Swiss launch their own fellowship program.
"There really are no losers,” Sturges said. "It's good for the fellows; it's good for the federal government; and it's good for science overall. The point of all this is to bring good science to government decision-making."
Swiss Officials
Visit U.S.
To help the Swiss policy-makers and scientific leaders decide on whether a fellows
program would be viable in their country, AAAStwice invited representatives
of the science and political establishment to visit Washington and to meet with
AAAS officials, legislators, and former and current fellows.
By the time the second meeting occurred on 10 April 2000, the Swiss were interested enough to send a delegation to Washington that included Johannes Randegger, chairman of the Science, Education and Culture Committee of the Swiss National Council, and Leuthold, who had volunteered to head up the new program if AAAS could help the Swiss representatives address some of their concerns.
For example, Sturges
says, "They were worried about ethical issues. They wanted to make sure
the fellows would not be brought from a corporate environment to carry water
for their former employers."
The AAAS staff made appointments for Randegger, Leuthold, and Kaufmann to meet
with staff on the Senate Ethics Committee, who told the Swiss that the fellows
were held in high regard.
"They learned that the fellows are considered free agents, that they are not there to represent their employers or even the association that sponsors them," Sturges said.
The visitors met
also with current and former fellows, as well as with a legislative staff director
who had worked with many fellows, and with U.S. Representative Vern Ehlers (R-MI),
who was at the time the only physicist in Congress. AAAS officials, including
Executive Officer Richard Nicholson, provided the institutional perspective,
as well as details of how a fellowship program might be administered.
Skilled in Science
and Communication
Leuthold says she came away with a sense of the sort of scientist most likely
to do a good job in a political setting: "They need to have a high level
of social competence and broad interests and understanding of the social impact
of science. They must also be able to explain complex concepts in simple terms,
and they need to be good scientists so they will have the respect of their colleagues
and can bring the best people together."
To launch the fellowship program in Switzerland, its advocates need only to work out logistics with the heads of the parliament's administrative staff, which is being done in monthly meetings. Funding for the program is being discussed with a foundation and looks "very promising," Kaufmann said.”
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FELLOWS In September the AAAS Council elected 251 members as Fellows of AAAS. These individuals will be recognized for their contributions to science at the Fellows Forum to be held on 17 February 2001 during the AAAS Annual Meeting in San Francisco. The new Fellows will receive a certificate and a blue and gold rosette pin as a symbol of their distinguished accomplishments. Presented by section affiliation, they are: |
Agriculture, Food, and
Renewable Resources
Vivien Gore Allen, Texas Tech Univ. • Leonard S. Bull, North Carolina State
Univ. • Rufus L. Chaney, USDA-ARS, Beltsville, MD • Noelle E. Cockett,
Utah State Univ. • David W. Dibb, Potash and Phosphate Institute, Norcross,
GA • Joan G. Ehrenfeld, Rutgers Univ. • Paul Gepts, Univ. of California,
Davis • Kriton K. Hatzios, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ.
• James W. Lauderdale, Augusta, MI • Peggy G. Lemaux, Univ. of California,
Berkeley • David R. Lineback, Univ. of Maryland, College Park • Josef
Nösberger, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich • Per Pinstrup-Andersen,
International Food Policy Research
Institute, Washington, DC
Anthropology
Leslie Crum Aiello, Univ. College London • Dean Falk, State Univ. of New
York, Albany • Robert W. Sussman, Washington Univ. • Tim D. White,
Univ. of California, Berkeley • Melinda A. Zeder, National Museum of Natural
History
Astronomy
David Arnett, Univ. of Arizona • Alan P. Boss, Carnegie Institution of
Washington • Benjamin Bova, Naples, FL • James B. Breckinridge, National
Science Foundation • J. Mayo Greenberg, Univ. of Leiden • Michael
G. Hauser, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore • Martha P. Haynes,
Cornell Univ. • Bambang Hidayat, Bosscha Observatory, Java, Indonesia •
Robert P. Kirshner, Harvard Univ.
Atmospheric and Hydrospheric
Sciences
Francis P. Bretherton, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison • Donald R. Johnson,
Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison • James W. Murray Jr., Univ. of Washington
• Akkihebbal R. Ravishankara, NOAA, Boulder • Peter H. Stone, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
Biological Sciences
Giorgio Bernardi, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Naples, Italy • Elizabeth
H. Blackburn, Univ. of California, San Francisco • P. Dee Boersma, Univ.
of Washington • R. Terry Bowyer, Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks • Barbara
D. Boyan, Univ. of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio • Susan V.
Bryant, Univ. of California, Irvine • James R. Carey, Univ. of California,
Davis • F. Stuart Chapin III, Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks • Rex L.
Chisholm, Northwestern Univ. • Rossiter Henry Crozier, James Cook Univ.,
Queensland, Australia • Michael A. Cusanovich, Univ. of Arizona •
Michael E. Dahmus, Univ. of California, Davis • Jared M. Diamond, Univ.
of California, Los Angeles • Norman C. Ellstrand, Univ. of California,
Riverside • Doina Ganea, Rutgers Univ. •
Robert B. Gennis, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana • David S. Hinds, California
State Univ., Bakersfield • Brigid L. M. Hogan, Vanderbilt Univ. Medical
Center • Kathryn Block Horwitz, Univ. of Colorado Health Sciences Center,
Denver • Edward D. Houde, Chesapeake Biological Lab., Univ. of Maryland,
Solomons • Masao Ikeda-Saito, Case Western Reserve Univ. • François
Jacob, Pasteur Institute, Paris • Stephen J. Kennel, Oak Ridge National
Lab. • Cletus P. Kurtzman, National Center for Agricultural Research, USDA-ARS,
Peoria, IL • Seppo Tapio Lakovaara, Univ. of Oulu, Finland • Jeffrey
S. Levinton, State Univ. of New York, Stony
Brook • Andrew Paul McMahon, Harvard Univ. • Alfred H. Merrill Jr.,
Emory Univ. • Randall Todd Moon, Univ. of Washington • M. Patricia
Morse, Univ. of Washington • Tomoko Ohta, National Institute of Genetics,
Misima, Japan • Norihiro Okada, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama
• Marcelino Perez de la Vega, Univ. of Leon, Spain • Roy E. Ritzmann,
Case Western Reserve Univ. • Kenneth A. Rose, Louisiana State Univ. •
Janet Rossant, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto
• Irving Rothchild, Cleveland Heights, OH • Lucia B. Rothman-Denes,
Univ. of Chicago • Catherine A. Royer, Centre de
Biochimie Structurale, Montpellier, France • Anssi Saura, Umea Univ., Sweden
• Carl W. Schmid, Univ. of California, Davis • Irwin H. Segel, Univ.
of California, Davis • Barbara S. Shane, Louisiana State Univ. • Zhifeng
Shao, Univ. of Virginia • Kamal Shukla, National Science Foundation •
Patricia G. Spear, Northwestern Univ. • Akiko Spindle, Univ. of California,
San Francisco • Stephen R. Sprang, Univ. of Texas Southwestern Medical
Center • Linda L. Spremulli, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill •
Jack A. Stanford, Flathead Lake Biological Station, Univ. of Montana, Polson
• George R. Stark, Cleveland Clinic Foundation • Cynthia Vianne Stauffacher,
Purdue Univ. • Mark Stoneking, Max Planck
Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany • Thomas C. Terwilliger,
Los Alamos National Lab. • Thomas C. Vanaman, Univ. of Kentucky •
John L. VandeBerg, Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, San Antonio
• Gerhard Wagner, Harvard Medical School • Peter G. Wells, Environment
Canada, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia • Cheng-Wen Wu, National Health Research
Institutes, Taipei, Taiwan • Elizabeth Anne Zimmer, Smithsonian NMNH Lab.
of Molecular Systematics, Suitland, MD
Chemistry
David F. Bocian, Univ. of California, Riverside • Charles L. Brooks III,
Scripps Research Institute • Pat N. Confalone, DuPont Pharmaceuticals •
Elias J. Corey, Harvard Univ. • Charles Delisi, Boston Univ. • John
M. Deutch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology • Mostafa A. El-Sayed,
Georgia Institute of Technology • Paul T. Englund, Johns Hopkins Univ.
• Albert Eschenmoser, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich •
Mark M. Green, Polytechnic Univ., Brooklyn • Jack Griffith, Univ. of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill • Roy H. Hammerstedt, BioPore, Inc., State College,
PA • Richard B. Kaner, Univ. of California, Los Angeles • Alan R.
Katritzky, Univ. of Florida • Peter T. Kissinger, BioAnalytical Systems,
West Lafayette, IN • Terry Ann Krulwich, Mount Sinai School of Medicine,
New York City • Chad A. Mirkin, Northwestern Univ. • Parry M. Norling,
E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. • Vincent L. Pecoraro, Univ. of Michigan,
Ann Arbor • Julius Rebek Jr., Scripps Research Institute • Christopher
A. Reed, Univ. of California, Riverside • Stuart L. Schreiber, Harvard
Univ. • John D. Simon, Duke Univ. • Jonathan V. Swedler, Univ. of
Illinois, Urbana • George J. Thomas Jr., Univ. of Missouri, Kansas City
• Laren M. Tolbert, Georgia Institute of Technology • David R. Walt,
Tufts Univ. • Ahmed H. Zewail, California Institute of Technology
Dentistry
Harold C. Slavkin, Univ. of Southern California
Education
Freeman A. Hrabowski III, Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore County • Edward
C. Keller Jr., West Virginia Univ. • Zafra M. Lerman, Columbia College,
Chicago • Susan Phillips Speece, Fresno City College • Kathryn D.
Sullivan, COSI Columbus, Columbus, OH • Patricia Wang-Iverson,
Research for Better Schools, Philadelphia
Engineering
Richard J. Arsenault, Univ. of Maryland, College Park • Maria de Graca
Carvalho, Technical Univ. of Lisbon • Jared Leigh Cohon, Carnegie Mellon
Univ. • Garth E. Cummings, Lawrence Livermore National Lab. • Denice
D. Denton, Univ. of Washington • David K. Holger, Iowa State Univ. •
Jeffrey A. Hubbell, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Univ. of Zurich
• Walter Y. Kato, Massachusetts Institute of Technology • Lawrence
A. Kennedy, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago • Max G. Lagally, Univ. of
Wisconsin, Madison • Enrique J. Lavernia, Univ. of California, Irvine •
Jon Orloff, Univ. of Maryland, College Park • David Pnueli, Technion, Israel
Institute of Technology, Haifa • Kenneth W. Potter, Univ. of Wisconsin,
Madison • Matthew Tirrell, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara • Joseph
A. Zasadzinski, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara
General Interest in Science
and Engineering
Robert C. Cowen, Concord, MA • Leslie Sue Lieberman, Univ. of Florida •
Assad I. Panah, Univ. of Pittsburgh, Bradford • Judith E. Parker, 3M, St.
Paul, MN • Susanna Hornig Priest, Texas A&M Univ.
Geology and Geography
William I. Ausich, Ohio State Univ. • Roger C. Bailes, Univ. of Arizona
• Gordon E. Brown, Stanford Univ. • Lawrence A. Brown, Ohio State
Univ. • Robert H. Fakundiny, New York State Geological Survey, Albany •
James P. Kennett, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara • Susan Werner Kieffer,
Kieffer & Associates, Inc., Bolton, Ont. • Teh-Lung Ku, Univ. of Southern
California • Shigenori Maruyama, Tokyo Institute of Technology • Lisa
A. Rossbacher, Southern Polytechnic State Univ., Marietta, GA
History and Philosophy
of Science
Thomas Fredrick Gieryn, Indiana Univ. • Stephen J. Pyne, Arizona State
Univ. • Alan J. Rocke, Case Western Reserve Univ. Industrial Science and
Technology Lowell W. Steele, Fairfield, CT
Information, Computing,
and Communication
Deborah L. Estrin, Univ. of Southern California • David K. Gifford, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology • S. S. Iyengar, Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge
• Anita Jones, Univ. of Virginia • Paul B. Kantor, Rutgers Univ. •
Rob Kling, Indiana Univ. • David A. Plaisted, Univ. of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill • Ben Shneiderman, Univ. of Maryland, College Park
Linguistics and Language
Science
Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Stanford Univ.
Mathematics
Michel L. Lapidus, Univ. of California, Riverside • Kenneth C. Millett,
Univ. of California, Santa Barbara • Frank Quinn, Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State Univ. • Donald G. Saari, Univ. of California, Irvine
• Michael Shub, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY
Medical Sciences
Huda Akil, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor • Kenneth I. Berns, Univ. of Florida
• George J. Brewer, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor • Ciro A. de Quadros,
Pan American Health Organization, Washington, DC • Darryl C. De Vivo, Columbia-Presbyterian
Medical Center, New York City • Jack E. Dixon, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Daniel E. Goldberg, Washington Univ. • Sidney E. Grossberg, Medical
College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee • John R. Hess, Walter Reed Army Institute
of Research, Washington, DC •
Katherine Ann High, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia • Timothy
A. Pedley, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, New York City • Paul M.
Quinton, Univ. of California, San Diego • Nancy E. Reame, Univ. of Michigan,
Ann Arbor • Philip D. Stahl, Washington Univ. • Stanley J. Watson,
Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor • Max S. Wicha, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Steven M. Wolinsky, Northwestern Univ.
Neuroscience
Richard A. Andersen, California Institute of Technology • Peter T. Fox,
Univ. of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio • Christopher D. Frith,
Univ. College London • Charles D. Gilbert, Rockefeller Univ. • Mary
Elizabeth Hatten, Rockefeller Univ. • Joseph E. Ledoux, New York Univ.
• Jeff W. Lichtman, Washington Univ. • Pasko Rakic, Yale Univ. •
James A. Simmons, Brown Univ. • Nicholas C. Spitzer, Univ. of California,
San Diego • Charles F. Stevens, Salk Institute • Thomas A. Woolsey,
Washington Univ.
Pharmaceutical Sciences
Kathleen M. Giacomini, Univ. of California, San Francisco • Neil Walker
Gibson, Bayer Corp., Old Lyme, CT • Duane D. Miller, Univ. of Tennessee,
Memphis • Michael F. Rafferty, Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research, Ann
Arbor, MI • Wei-Chiang Shen, Univ. of Southern California • Barbara
N. Timmermann, Univ. of Arizona • Robert Vince, Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Physics
Jayanth R. Banavar, Pennsylvania State Univ. • Bertram J. R. Batlogg, Bell
Labs., Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ • Amitava Bhattacharjee, Univ.
of Iowa • Marc H. Brodsky, American Institute of Physics, College Park,
MD • John C. Browne, Los Alamos National Lab. • Steven Chu, Stanford
Univ. • Jolie A. Cizewski, Rutgers Univ. • Sidney D. Drell, Stanford
Univ. • Pulak Dutta, Northwestern Univ. • Pedro M. Echenique, Univ.
del Pais Vasco, San Sabastian, Spain • Paul D. Grannis, State Univ. of
New York, Stony Brook • John B. Ketterson, Northwestern Univ. • Irving
A. Lerch, American Physical Society, College Park, MD • John D.
Lindl, Lawrence Livermore National Lab. • Tom C. Lubensky, Univ. of Pennsylvania
• John H. Marburger III, Brookhaven National Lab. • Thomas J. McIlrath,
American Physical Society, College Park, MD • David J. Pine, Univ. of California,
Santa Barbara • Terrence J. Quinn, Bureau International des Poids et Mesures,
Sèvres, France • J. Michael Rowe, National Institute of Standards
and Technology • John S. Toll, Washington College, Chestertown, MD •
Frank Wilczek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology • Stephen Wolfram,
Wolfram Research, Inc., Champaign, IL
Psychology
Bennett Ira Bertenthal, Univ. of Chicago • Frank M. Gresham, Univ. of California,
Riverside • Marcel Adam Just, Carnegie Mellon Univ. • Ken Nakayama,
Harvard Univ.
Social, Economic, and
Political Sciences
J. Clarence Davies, Resources for the Future, Washington, DC • Charles
B. Nam, Florida State Univ. • Thomas K. Rudel, Rutgers Univ. • Mark
Sagoff, Univ. of Maryland, College Park • Larry E. Westphal, Swarthmore
College
Societal Impacts of Science
and Engineering
Suzanne G. Brainard, Univ. of Washington • Radford Byerly Jr., Boulder,
CO • Howard J. Gobstein, Michigan State Univ. • Raymond E. Spier,
Univ. of Surrey, UK
Statistics
Lynne Billard, Univ. of Georgia • Subir Ghosh, Univ. of California, Riverside
• Jerome Sacks, National Institute of Statistical Sciences
