Gerald Epstein, Former White House Science and Security Analyst, Joins AAAS

Gerald Epstein, a physicist with a broad background in policy and analysis, has joined AAAS as director of the Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy. He succeeds Norman Neureiter, the center's first director, who will continue as senior adviser for the Center and for the AAAS Center for Science Diplomacy.

Gerald Epstein

Epstein most recently was senior fellow for science and security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Before that he had been at the Institute for Defense Analyses, where he was assigned to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. From 1996 to 2001, Epstein worked at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, serving a joint appointment in his last year as assistant director for national security at OSTP and senior director for science and technology on the National Security Council staff.

From 1983 to 1989 and again from 1991 to its demise in 1995, Epstein worked at the congressional Office of Technology Assessment.

“We're delighted to have been able to recruit Gerald Epstein, a great expert in both nuclear and biological security issues, to AAAS,” said Alan I. Leshner, chief executive officer of AAAS and executive publisher of Science. “He follows Norman Neureiter, himself an expert in national and international security.” Neureiter joined AAAS in 2004 after a distinguished career in industry and government, including an appointment as science and technology adviser to the U.S. Secretary of State from 2000 to 2003.

“I'm thrilled at being able to join the Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy,” Epstein said, “and I look forward to working with its first-rate staff to ensure that security policy is made with the best scientific and technical input. I'm also grateful that Norman Neureiter, who built the Center, has agreed to stay on as senior adviser. I will work to continue the Center's established record of connecting scientists and government.”

The Center, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, provides a portal through which the academic community and policy institutes, primarily those who are members of the MacArthur Foundation's Science, Technology and Security Initiative, can communicate with each other, and with policymakers and their staffs. The Center hosts briefings on Capitol Hill and elsewhere with the aim of providing balanced technical analysis on national security topics.

Earl Lane

14 October 2009