SCIENCE AND POLICY
AAAS Fellows Program Celebrates 30th Anniversary

Over the past 30 years, AAAS and its affiliated societies have brought more than 1600 scientists and engineers to work in the U.S. Congress, and in the agencies that carry out the policies set by the political leaders of the United States.

Today, as the Association prepares to mark the anniversary of its Science and Technology Policy Fellowship program on 18 to 19 September, other nations--Switzerland, Australia, and South Africa--are taking steps toward setting up fellows programs of their own. And, in the U.S. capital, the need for the fellows seems more compelling than ever, according to AAAS CEO Alan I. Leshner.

"Faced with concerns over issues like climate change, stem cell research, nanotechnology, and bioterrorism, policymakers are particularly hungry for information and guidance," Leshner said. "The fellows program makes sure that the expertise is in place throughout the federal government--not as a way of advocating for science, but as a way of making sure that policy-makers have ready access to solid scientific information."

The program began in 1973 with the AAAS Congressional Fellows program. Now, with the support of several of AAAS's affiliated societies and a dozen government agencies, the program offers 10 fellowships in a wide range of areas, including science policy in general, global security, risk policy, environment, and diplomacy.

Regardless of whether they returned to the lab or continued working in science policy, the fellows often say that their fellowship experience has changed their lives.

"Left to my own devices, I would likely have remained in the lab, studying an aspect of marine biology," said former congressional fellow Rosina Bierbaum, now Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan and a member of the AAAS Board of Directors. "The fellowship convinced me that the role of scientists is also in the legislative and executive branches."

Jane Alexander, another former congressional fellow, started her professional life as a bench scientist in solid-state physics, but became fascinated with policy in 1986–87, while working on energy and environmental issues in the office of then-Senator Albert Gore, Jr. She currently serves as Deputy Director of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA), a part of the Science and Technology Directorate for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The agency is charged with researching and bringing about the development and implementation of new technologies that can be used to protect the nation from terrorist attacks.

"An amazing number of pieces of legislation have some science underlying them," said Alexander, who notes that the fellows play dual roles--helping policy-makers understand complex scientific principles, while contesting the notion that science is somehow, "weird, esoteric, and quasi-magical." The fellows, who sign on for a 1-year term, have also provided the scientific community with expertise in how policy works, Alexander said.

"We just had a meeting with the scientific societies that support some of the fellowships," she added. "The way they see it, they want good technical advice available to the government, but they also want scientists to come back with useful knowledge, so they can say to their colleagues, ‘That's just not how you influence Washington,' or, ‘That's not how Washington thinks about things.' "

Two years ago, Switzerland adopted the fellows model, the Swiss Parliamentary Science Fellows Program. South Africa and Australia are considering following suit.

"So many of the issues the Australian Parliament deals with these days have a scientific aspect to them--disposal of nuclear waste, management of water resources, biodiversity, greenhouse effect, energy sources of the future," said Toss Gascoigne, executive director of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS). "The AAAS model is unique, and it's been tested by time. It's the sort of thing Americans do very well, and we are quite happy to borrow a good idea."

The anniversary of the AAAS fellows program will be marked with a symposium entitled "Vision 2033: Linking Science and Policy for Tomorrow's World." Beginning on 18 September, the 2-day event will be held at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and will focus on the future, as it explores the impact of research on society, security, energy, and the environment. The Honorable Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, will be the keynote speaker. A former fellow, the Honorable Rush Holt (D–NJ), will provide concluding remarks. More information is available at http://fellowships.aaas.org/30th/registration. shtml.

HUMAN RIGHTS
AAAS Statisticians Estimate Deaths from Conflict in Peru

In mid-August, members of AAAS's human rights staff traveled to Lima, Peru, to take part in a historic event--the public release of a report concluding that 69,280 people (in a confidence interval from 61,007 to 77,552) were killed or "disappeared" during a 20-year conflict between government forces and Maoist insurgents.

The release of the AAAS report, entitled "How Many Peruvians Died?--An Estimate of the Total Number of Victims of the Internal Armed Conflict, 1980–2000," was accompanied by a panel discussion between Peruvian scientists and the co-authors of the report--Patrick Ball, Deputy Director of the AAAS Science and Human Rights Program; Jana Asher, a statistical consultant for AAAS; and David Sulmont, with Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

"This exchange is important for the credibility of the report, which almost doubles previous estimates of how many people were killed," Ball said. "We've invited Peruvian scientists to debate and discuss our methods, and we're doing it in front of the press."

The report exemplifies the use of scientific methods in human rights investigations. The authors used statistical projections from reports of 24,000 victims to estimate how many deaths had not been reported. Based on the reports of witnesses, the authors suggest that the Shining Path, a Maoist rebel group, committed 45% of the killings, and that 30% could be attributed to government security forces. The deaths of another 23% were blamed on other rebel groups, including the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, and armed peasant groups. Ball and his colleagues used data analysis methods developed in Kosovo and in Guatemala in the last decade to document large-scale human rights abuses. Ball said that the AAAS report on the deaths is part of a larger document produced by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to record the infamous era in Peruvian history.

On June 21, The Washington Post paraphrased the words of commission president Salomon Lerner Febres, who had come to the United States to report on the results of the AAAS investigation to the United Nations.

"Lerner said that while there may never be a full accounting of the victims, Peruvian society needs to come to terms with the violence so that it never happens again," according to the newspaper account. In the interview, Lerner noted the role of Ball and his colleagues: "With the help of international analysts, we were able to be more precise with our work. The violence was much more intense than we had thought."

The report was produced with funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The AAAS Science and Human Rights Program has conducted quantitative analyses for large-scale human rights data projects in Africa, Asia, South America, and Eastern Europe.

SCIENCE CAREERS
ENTRY POINT! Interns Top 400 in Seventh Year

In 7 years, AAAS's ENTRY POINT! program has placed more than 400 science and engineering students with disabilities in internships in the public and private sectors. And more than 90% of the former interns go on to graduate school or jobs in science and technology.

"Two of our students have received job offers in early August, when they don't even graduate from school until next May," said ENTRY POINT! Director Virginia Stern.

On July 16, a group of the interns visited the U.S. Capitol, 13 years after Congress passed the Americans for Disabilities Act, one of the pieces of legislation that has made it possible for the interns to accomplish as much as they have, Stern said. In 2003, the program placed 52 interns in government and private internships that often lead to full-time employment. By visiting the legislators who represent their hometowns, the interns draw attention to the role they can play in satisfying the nation's need for more scientists and engineers.

"We want to remind policy-makers that without these laws, the students would not have had the opportunity for a high-quality education; they would not have the skills for these internships; they would not be candidates for competitive jobs in technical fields," Stern said. Once legislation opened the doors, she added, new technologies gave people with disabilities the tools they needed to do the jobs they were assigned.

The program was started to encourage students with disabilities to apply their skills in a real-world setting. AAAS works in partnership with IBM, NASA, NSF, and JPMorgan Chase to place the students in the paid summer internships.

SCIENCE POLICY
AAAS Initiative to Report on Impact of Post-9/11 Era

The National Science Foundation has funded a AAAS initiative to track and analyze the impacts on the scientific enterprise of security measures imposed on the research and higher education communities since September 11, 2001.

"A number of organizations have been examining different aspects of the situation-- delays in processing visas for foreign students and visitors, rules for handling certain chemical and biological agents, policies regarding publication of ‘sensitive but unclassified' information, and changes in federal grant and contract provisions," said Al Teich, head of AAAS's Directorate for Science and Public Policy Programs. "The AAAS project is the only one so far that is looking at the big picture."

In the initial stage of the project, AAAS staff are setting up a system for collecting and organizing information on ways in which science and scientists have been affected. Teich notes that the project will also engage in educational and outreach activities aimed at policy-makers, the scientific community, the media, and the interested public.

Scientists and engineers whose activities have been affected by these policies are invited to contact AAAS staff, either by e-mail (post911@aaas.org), or by using the form on the project Web site: www.aaas.org/spp/post911.