The luck of the campus housing draw put me in the middle of the law school dorm for my first term as a graduate student in chemistry.  Late in the quarter, when anxieties were high, and the law students decompressed by arguing politics – loudly – in the hall outside my door, I was called upon to defend the funding of scientific research versus feeding the poor, as a social priority.
 
I had been sitting quietly in my room, writing up an answer key to the weekly freshman chemistry problem set when a large, irate law student stepped into my room and demanded to know if I, a scientist, believed that science was “above the fray.”  A little startled to be thrust into their debate and a little uncertain about how I truly felt, I meekly replied, “Well…no, I don’t think science takes precedence over social needs.”  This got the guy out of my room, allowing me to escape back into chemistry. (Phew!)  Mercifully, I was able to find housing elsewhere on campus for the next term.

Caught up in surviving the science Ph.D. program gauntlet, one rarely has the opportunity to think much about issues of greater scope than, say, winning over that one unfriendly member of your thesis committee.  Luckily, I ended up taking a course on a challenging environmental issue (climate change) that has complex social as well as scientific issues.  Climate science, as we have all had the opportunity to observe, is highly politicized.  My professor asked us to analyze an article written by coal industry lobbyists as a homework assignment.  In the process, we learned how to detect the “values” statements that can be buried in a scientific piece.

Beyond gaining a new appreciation for the skillful use of rhetoric in political arguments, I also began to appreciate the role of values in the shaping of policy that one would think should be entirely science based.  Next, I realized that pitting science against social values is a false dichotomy.  Science, unadulterated, is just knowledge -- based on objective information -- about how the world works.  If I’d had my wits about me when that lawyer burst into my dorm room, I could have remarked, after agreeing that science has to take its place among other social priorities in the funding debate, that science and social welfare are not mutually exclusive. 
 
In my job as a government scientist, I am reminded of my place in the policy universe on a daily basis: my job is to support the EPA air quality policy office in understanding the meaning of the latest relevant science.  Their job, among many, is to take that new knowledge, and package it with the other elements that are necessary for a successful environmental policy.  Those elements include the evaluation of the social costs of uncontrolled versus regulated pollutant emissions, practical guidance on the implementation of the regulation, analytic tools for supporting the implementation and a program for educating the senior management, Congress and EPA’s other stakeholders, including the public.  These folks then stretch their necks over the chopping block by posting their analyses and recommendations on the www.regulations.gov website for public comment -- announced in the Federal Register, as required by law.  Go there, and you’ll see that EPA’s actions top the list for public comments received.  The policy office does not have the license to ignore them, no matter the inconvenience.  

Getting a regulation through the system is an enormous, sometimes deeply frustrating, process for the Agency staff.  As much as I would like to think of myself, and my fellow EPA scientists, as major contributors to environmental protection, we do seem to have the easier part of the job.

The whole process does start with science, however.  Without legally defensible information to prove that significant damage results from the release of a pollutant, there is no impetus for a regulation.  This fact places significant responsibility on the shoulders of those in charge of the task of producing, evaluating and synthesizing the science.   As a government scientist, one wants to make certain that: 1) the science you are providing to your clients in the policy development side of your agency is as accurate (or as accurately characterized) as possible, and; 2) you’ve succeeded in clearly communicating the implications of the science to your clients.   We spend our days in graduate school learning what makes a piece of science well-founded.  We don’t, however, learn how to clearly communicate the implications to a lay audience.

For those of us who see doing science as a personal calling, expanding our rational understanding of the way the world works is our preoccupation, and a great source of pleasure.  From there, it is a short step to the belief that everyone else should feel the same way.  For the busy people I serve in my job, scientific details are a distraction – and sometimes a source of annoyance!  I was openly scolded by my policy colleagues for using the term, “refractory” to describe a class of material found in air pollution particles, on a slide for a briefing we were preparing for their boss.  “[Our boss] doesn’t want to know about that!!” 

Occasional poor word choice notwithstanding, the most useful skill I developed as an AAAS Fellow in Washington, D.C. was how to write a very succinct briefing “one-pager” on complicated environmental issues.  The ability to map one’s nuanced understanding of an issue into a set of terse, plain language bullet points is valuable for communicating science to a range of audiences.  Being able to craft a set of bullet points that inspire a senior policy official to advocate for new regulatory action is even better.  

I got my first taste of efficient, persuasive communication in a class on business writing I took during my postdoc.  I already knew how to write well enough, but that class made me aware of the reality that most professionals, especially those in a high profile, decision-making role, don’t have time to wade through your prose, regardless of how well it is written.  Being acquainted with that notion was a great help when I landed in D.C., and learned that my audience would only be busy people with no patience for prose.

Achieving that skill of inspiring senior policy officials with one-pagers requires scientific knowledge, but also a sensitivity to the other factors that govern their policy choices.   It is helpful to learn your target’s boss’s priorities.  If you can craft your message in a way that speaks to those priorities, you will improve your chances of winning the official’s attention long enough to make your point.  While it helps to have a sense of the complexities of policy making, the management priorities change, in part, with the change in U.S. President.  Understanding the concerns of your senior policy makers takes on-the-job experience.

You may be wondering why a self-respecting scientist would want to subject herself to such seeming foolishness.   Here is where one’s corny idealism plays a role.  The most effective way to make a tangible difference to the world, as a scientist, is to be an effective government agency scientist.

For me, part of maturing as a professional has been accepting and understanding where we scientists fit into – and how we serve – society.