Peter Bonner is a Senior Fellow at FAS.

Katie: Peter, first, can you explain what government capacity means to you?

Peter: What government capacity means to me is ensuring that the people in the public sector, federal government primarily, have the skills, the tools, the technologies, the relationships, and the talent that help them meet their agency missions they need to do their jobs.

Those agency missions are really quite profound. I think we lose sight of this: if you’re working at the EPA, your job is to protect human health in the environment. If you’re working at the Department of the Interior, it’s to conserve and protect our natural resources and cultural heritage for the benefit of the public. If you’re working for HHS, you’re enhancing the health and well-being of all Americans. You’re working for the Department of Transportation, you’re ensuring a safe and efficient transportation system. And you can get into the national security agencies about protecting us from our enemies, foreign and domestic. These missions are amazing. Building that capacity so that the people can do their jobs better and more effectively is a critical and noble undertaking. Government employees are stewards of what we hold in common as a people. To me, that’s what government capacity is about.

Mr. Bonner’s Experience and Ambitions at FAS

You’ve had a long career in government – but how is it that you’ve come to focus on this particular issue as something that could make a big difference?

I’ve spent a  couple of decades building government capacity in different organizations and roles, most recently as a government executive and political appointee as an associate director at the Office of Personnel Management. Years ago I worked as a contractor with a number of different companies, building human capital and strategic consulting practices. In all of those roles, in one way or another, it’s been about building government capacity.

One of my first assignments when I worked as a contractor was working on the  Energy Star program, and helping to bridge the gaps between the public sector interests – wanting to create greater energy efficiency and reduce energy usage to address climate change – to the private sector interests – making sure their products were competitive and using market forces to demonstrate the effectiveness of federal policy. This work promoted energy efficiency across energy production, computers, refrigerators, HVAC equipment, even commercial building and residential housing. Part of the capacity building piece of that was working with the federal staff and the federal clients who ran those programs, but also making sure they had the right sets of collaboration skills to work effectively with the private sector around these programs and work effectively with other federal agencies. Agencies not only needed to work collaboratively wih the private sector, but across agencies as well. Those collaboration skills–those skills to make sure they’re working jointly inter-agency – don’t always come naturally because people feel protective about their own agency, their own budgets, and their own missions. So that’s an example of building capacity. 

Another project early on I was involved in was helping to develop a training program for inspectors of underground storage tanks. That’s pretty obscure, but underground storage tanks have been a real challenge in the nation in creating groundwater pollution. We developed an online course using simulations on how to detect leaks and underground storage tanks. The capacity building piece was getting the agencies and  tank inspectors at the state and local level to use this new learning technology to make their jobs easier and more effective. 

Capacity building examples abound – helping OPM build human capital frameworks and improve operating processes, improving agency performance management systems, enhancing the skills of Air Force medical personnel to deal with battlefield injuries, and on. I’ve been doing capacity building through HR transformation,  learning, leadership development, strategy and facilitation, human centered design, and looking at how do you develop HR and human capital systems that support that capacity building in the agencies. So across my career, those are the kinds of things that I’ve been involved in around government capacity.

What brought you to FAS and what you’re doing now? 

I left my job as the associate director for HR Solutions at the Office of Personnel Management last May with the intent of finding ways to continue to contribute to the effective functioning of the federal government. This opportunity came about from a number of folks I’d worked with while at OPM and elsewhere.

FAS is in a unique position to change the game in federal capacity building through thought leadership, policy development, strategic placement of temporary talent, and initiatives to bring more science and technical professionals to lead federal programs. 

I’m really trying to help change the game in talent acquisition and talent management and how they contribute to government capacity. That ranges from upfront hiring in the HR arena through to onboarding and performance management and into program performance.

I think what I’m driven by at FAS is to really unleash the capacity, the creativity, the energy, the determination of the public sector workforce to be able to do their jobs as efficiently and effectively as they know how. The number of people I know in the federal government that have great ideas on how to improve their programs in the bottom left hand drawer of their desk or on their computer desktop, that they can never get around to because of everything else that gets in the way. 

There are ways to cut through the clutter to help make hiring and talent management effective. Just in hiring: creative recruiting and sourcing for science and technical talent, using hiring flexibilities and hiring authorities on hand, equipping HR staffing specialists and hiring managers with the tools they need, working across agencies on common positions, accelerating background checks are all ways to speed up the hiring process and improve hiring quality.

It’s the stuff that gets in the way that inhibits their ability to do these things. So that unleashing piece is the real reason I’m here. When it comes to the talent management piece changing, if you can move the needle a little bit on the perception of public sector work and federal government work, because the perception, the negative perception of what it’s like to work in the federal government or the distrust in the federal government is just enormous. The barriers there are profound. But if we can move the needle on that just a little bit, and if we can change the candidate experience of the person applying for a federal job so that they, while it may be arduous, results in a positive experience for them and for the hiring manager and HR staffing specialist, that then becomes the seed bed for a positive employee experience in the federal job. That then becomes the seed bed for an effective customer experience because the linkage between employee experience and customer experience is direct. So if we can shift the needle on those things just a little bit, we then start to change the perception of what public sector work is like, and tap into that energy of what brought them to the public sector job in the first place, which by and large is the mission of the agency.

Using Emerging Technologies to Improve Government Capacity

How do you see emerging technologies assisting or helping that mission?

The emerging technologies in talent management are things that other sectors of the economy are working with and that the federal government is quickly catching up on. Everybody thinks the private sector has this lock picked. Well, not necessarily. Private sector organizations also struggle with HR systems that effectively map to the employee journey and that provide analytics that can guide HR decision-making along the way.

A bright spot for progress in government capacity is in recruiting and sourcing talent. Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Energy are using front end recruiting software to attract people into their organizations. The  Climate Corps, for example, or the Clean Energy Corps at Department of Energy. So they’re using those front end recruiting systems to bring people in and attract people in to submit the resumes and their applications that can again, create that positive initial candidate experience, then take ’em through the rest of the process. There’s work being done in automating and developing more effective online assessments from USA Hire, for example, so that if you’re in a particular occupation, you can take an online test when you apply and that test is going to qualify you for the certification list on that job.

Those are not emerging technologies but they are being deployed effectively in government. The mobile platforms to quickly and easily communicate with the applicants and communicate with the candidates at different stages of the process. Those things are coming online and already online in many of the agencies. 

In addition to some experimentation with AI tools, I think one of the more profound pieces around technologies is what’s happening at the program level that is changing the nature of the jobs government workers do that then impacts what kind of person an HR manager is  looking for. 

For example, while there are specific occupations focused on machine learning, AI, and data analytics, data literacy and acumen and using these tools going to be part of everyone’s job in the future. So facility with those analytic tools and with the data visualization tools that are out there is going to have a profound impact on the jobs themselves. Then you back that up to, okay, what kind of person am I looking for here? I need somebody with that skill set coming in. Or who can be easily up-skilled into that. That’s true for data literacy, data analytics, some of the AI skill sets that are coming online. It’s not just the technologies within the talent management arena, but it’s the technologies that are happening in the front lines and the programs that then determine what kind of person I’m looking for and impact those jobs.

The Significance of Permitting Reform for Hiring

You recently put on a webinar for the Permitting Council. Do you mind explaining what that is and what the goal of the webinar was?

The Permitting Council was created under what’s called the Fast 41 legislation, which is legislation to improve the capacity and the speed at which environmental permits are approved so that we can continue with federal projects. Permitting has become a real hot button issue right now because the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law created all of these projects in the field, some on federal lands, some on state and local lands, and some on tribal or private sector lands, that then create the need to do an environmental permit of some kind in order to get approval to build. 

So under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we’re trying to create internet for all, for example, and particularly provide internet access in rural communities where they haven’t had it before, and people who perhaps couldn’t afford it. That requires building cell towers and transmission lines on federal lands, and that then requires permits, require a permitting staff or a set of permitting contractors to actually go in and do that work.

Permitting has been, from a talent perspective, underresourced. They have not had the capacity, they have not had the staff even to keep up with the permits necessitated by these new pieces of legislation. So getting the right people hired, getting them in place, getting the productive environmental scientists, community planners, the scientists of different types, marine biologists, landscape folks, the fish and wildlife people who can advise on how best to do those environmental impact statements or categorical exclusions as a result of the National Environmental Protection Act – it has been a challenge. Building that capacity in the agencies that are responsible for permitting is really a high leverage point for these pieces of legislation because if I can’t build the cell tower, I then don’t realize the positive results from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. And you can think of the range of things that those pieces of legislation have fostered around the country from clean water systems in underserved communities, to highways, to bridges, to roads, to airports.

Another example is offshore wind. So you need marine biologists to be able to help do the environmental impact statements around building the wind turbines offshore and examine the effect on the marine habitats. It’s those people that the Department of Interior, the Department of Energy, and Department of Commerce need to hire to come in and run those programs and do those permits effectively. That’s what the Permitting Council does.

One of the things that we worked with with OPM and the Permitting Council together on is creating a webinar so that we got the hiring managers and the HR staffing specialists in the room at the same time to talk about the common bottlenecks that they face in the hiring process. After doing outreach and research, we created journey maps and a set of personas to identify a couple of the most salient and common challenges and high leverage challenges that they face.

Overcoming Hiring Bottlenecks for Permitting Talent, a webinar presented to government hiring managers, May 2024

Looking at the ecosystem within hiring, from what gets in the way in recruiting and sourcing, all the way through to onboarding, to focusing in on the position descriptions and what do you do if you don’t have an adequate position description upfront when you’re trying to hire that environmental scientist to the background check process and the suitability process. What do you do when things get caught in that suitability process? And if you can’t bring those folks on board in a timely fashion you risk losing them. 

We focused on a couple of the key challenges in that webinar, and we had, I don’t know, 60 or 70 people who were there, the hiring managers and HR staffing specialists who took away from that a set of tools that they can use to accelerate and improve that hiring process and get high quality hires on quickly to assist with the permitting.

The Permitting Council has representatives from each of the agencies that do permitting, and works with them on cross agency activities. The council also has funding from some of these pieces of legislation to foster the permitting process, either through new software or people process, the ability to get the permits done as quickly as possible. So that’s what the webinar was about. I We’re talking about doing a second one to look at the more systemic and policy related changes, challenges in permitting hiring.

The Day One Project 2025

FAS has launched its Day One Project 2025, a massive call for nonpartisan, science-based policy ideas that a next presidential administration can utilize on “day one” – whether the new administration is Democrat or Republican. One of the areas we’ve chosen to focus on is Government Capacity. Will you be helping evaluate the ideas that are submitted?

I’ve had input into the Day One Project, and particularly around the talent pieces in the government capacity initiative, and also procurement and innovation in that area. I think the potential of that to help set the stage for talent reform more broadly, be it legislative policy, regulatory or the risk averse culture we have in the federal government. I think the impact of that Day One Project could be pretty profound if we get the right energy behind it. So one of the things that I’ve known for a while, but has come clear to me over the past five months working with FAS, is that there are black boxes in the talent management environment in the federal government. What I mean by that is that it goes into this specialized area of expertise and nobody knows what happens in that specialized area until something pops out the other end.

How do you shed light on the inside of those black boxes so it’s more transparent what happens? For instance: position descriptions when agencies are trying to hire someone. Sometimes what happens with position descriptions is that the job needs to be reclassified because it’s changed dramatically from the previous position description. Well, I know a little about classification and what happens in the classification process, but to most people looking from the outside to hiring managers, that’s a black box. Nobody knows what goes on. I mean, they don’t know what goes on within that classification process to know that it’s going to be worthwhile for them once they have the position description at the other end and are able to do an effective job announcement. Shedding light on that, I think has the potential to increase transparency and trust between the hiring manager and the HR folks or the program people and the human people.

If we’re able to create that greater transparency. If we’re able to tell the candidates when they come in and apply for a job where they are in the hiring process and whether they made the cert list or didn’t make the cert list. And if they are in the CT list, what’s next in terms of their assessment and the process? If they’ve gone through the interview, where are we in the decision deliberations about offering me the job? Same thing in suitability. Those are many black boxes all the way, all the way across. And creating transparency and communication around it, I think will go a long way, again, to moving that needle on the perception of what federal work is and what it’s like to work in the system. So it’s a long answer to a question that I guess I can summarize by saying, I think we are in a target rich environment here. There’s lots of opportunity here to help change the game.

The Office of Technology Transfers is holding a series of webinars on cutting-edge technologies being developed at the DOE National Labs – and the transformative applications they could have globally for energy access. We sat down with the people behind these technologies – the experts who make that progress possible. These interviews highlight why a strong energy workforce is so important, from the lab into commercial markets. These interviews have been edited for length and do not necessarily reflect the views of the DOE. Be sure to attend DOE’s next National Lab Discovery Series webinar on multiphysics modeling for fusion energy on Wednesday, June 26.

Dr. Pierre-Clément Simon and Dr. Casey Icenhour come from different backgrounds, but share similar passions: for driving forward progress in fusion energy and mentoring early career scientists. At Idaho National Lab, they do both. As computational scientists at INL, they contribute to the development of groundbreaking technologies in the world of fusion. Dr. Simon works on FENIX, a new multi-physics modeling program, and Dr. Icenhour works on MOOSE, a foundational modeling framework that underpins FENIX – a system that is used to simulate reactions within fusion energy. 

The Road to Idaho

Dr. Simon grew up in France, where he pursued engineering science for both his undergraduate and Master’s degrees. During his studies, he questioned where he would use the skills and knowledge he was gaining. “I wanted to make sure I applied them to something useful to society, and I asked myself what the big challenges were that we’re facing today. And climate change was one of the main ones for me – and from there working in energy became something that I was very passionate about.” (Simon)

He continued on to his PhD at Penn State, focusing his energy on nuclear fission research. After graduating, he faced a tough decision – stay in the US, or head back home to France. What helped him decide was the culture of American research that allows for ambitious ideas, exploration, and even failure early in one’s career. 

“You can’t do science if you’re being too cautious. The early stages of your career are really important to take those risks, grow, challenge the status quo, and have an impact. And for me, the labs – and especially INL – were a great place for that.” (Simon)

Dr. Icenhour started closer to home – growing up in western North Carolina, he got his start at Western Carolina University in the electrical engineering program. His studies there and later at North Carolina State University for his PhD led him to combine his electrical engineering background with a focus in nuclear engineering and plasma physics. 

As a first-generation college student, Dr. Icenhour didn’t immediately see the labs as a career option – he assumed he would head into industry after graduation, maybe returning to academia in the future to fuel his passion for teaching. It wasn’t until he discovered and participated in DOE’s Graduate Student Research Award program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory that that changed. 

“When I went to Oak Ridge, I realized that the labs served this vital need in between academia and industry – they’re doing the big science that [those two] might not be willing or able to pay for because of the size of the investment…I felt that if I wanted to make an impact in a multifaceted way – not only on research, but on collaborations with industry and working with students in service to energy and climate change – that this was the place I wanted to be.” (Icenhour)

Dr. Icenhour continued his work on plasma physics, electromagnetics, and the MOOSE framework at Idaho National Laboratory while continuing to work on his PhD – completing it in 2023 and converting to a full-time staff member at INL. 

Physics Modeling of the Future

Dr. Icenhour and Dr. Simon are both computational scientists at INL – but focused on different programs. Dr. Icenhour began working on the MOOSE (Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment) framework during his PhD, and has helped translate its capabilities to FENIX (Fusion ENergy Integrated multiphys-X). Dr. Simon leads the development of FENIX – a modeling system that is able to incorporate multiple frameworks like MOOSE and apply them to fusion simulations. 

In basic terms, MOOSE is a multiphysics modeling framework that allows a user to simulate how systems will interact with different, potentially highly-coupled areas of physics. It can allow scientists to test different interactions – how a material would experience heat transfer, electromagnetic forces, solid mechanics, and other materials in different environments.  

Scientists use programs like MOOSE to test out designs and functions of new technologies like fission and fusion that are expensive and time- and labor-intensive to test out in reality. Having modeling systems that can reliably simulate how certain designs will interact with different environments saves money and people power, and allows for more creative and ambitious experiments. These programs can rapidly increase the pace of research, development, and deployment of new technologies. 

FENIX takes that work a step further – using the lessons learned and capabilities of MOOSE and other frameworks, combining them, and applying it to fusion systems. For example: a researcher could use MOOSE to validate how a material tile responds to heat exposure, and then use FENIX to incorporate other programs like Cardinal (developed at Argonne) and TMAP8 (Tritium Migration Analysis Program, version 8 – developed at INL), to understand how neutron-generated heat and tritium implantation would affect the same material tile. 

It sounds complex, but Dr. Simon and Dr. Icenhour describe it as using building blocks – starting small and slowly increasing the complexity. 

“Under the MOOSE ecosystem we’re building whole reactor models – the entirety of an advanced reactor core. That’s what we want to do for fusion…Being able to do these fully integrated models can help us develop resources that industry can use for rapid design iteration and engineering. We’re starting small and then building big simulations that can be utilized in an intelligent way to get the answers we need to solve these challenges.” (Icenhour)

Importantly, these programs are or will be completely open source – anyone with an internet connection can download, use, and contribute to MOOSE, and will soon be able to with FENIX as well. This makes collaborations with a much wider network of scientists possible, and the team at Idaho has worked with labs and students across the US, in Italy, and the UK. Dr. Simon explained that his team has developed trainings for these programs and why it’s necessary to keep it open source: “The fusion industry will not exist if we don’t have the workforce that’s needed.” (Simon)

The Power of Mentorship

Dr. Icenhour and Dr. Simon work tirelessly to move these technologies forward, and they have already accomplished quite a bit. Dr. Icenhour actually developed the electromagnetics module of the MOOSE framework as part of his PhD – now it’s being used as part of the larger initiative. “My greatest accomplishment is being able to contribute something that I worked for years on that other folks see as important to their research. The sense of accomplishment I feel from that is incomparable to a lot of other aspects of the job.”

Dr. Simon has had his share of technical accomplishments as well, but shared the pride he felt when he recently received the INL Lab Director’s Award for Inclusive Diversity – given based on his efforts to support international and early career researchers at the lab.  “When you want to do great science, you need a fantastic community with a lot of diverse ideas. If you only have the same type of people doing the research, you’re always going to end up with the same outputs, with the same limitations.

But more than any awards or achievements, Dr. Simon and Dr. Icenhour both emphasized that they feel their most important work is mentoring other researchers. They are both still early career themselves, and feel a responsibility to support others in pursuing lab careers. Both are members of the Early Career Researchers Association at INL, with Dr. Simon acting as the current Chair and Dr. Icenhour as the Professional Development Officer. 

Dr. Simon spoke about the challenges of first coming to the US as an international student – “My first full discussion in English was at customs. I was blessed to have a lot of people that were willing and able to mentor and guide me – there’s a long list of people that really changed my career. I want to do my best to pay it forward.”

Dr. Icenhour’s experience during his internship at ORNL was similar: “[My experience] at Oak Ridge really introduced me to that way of working and the opportunities I might have, and that changed my career. The mentorships and experiences I received there and the opportunity to go made all the difference.” 

Combined, they oversee five interns, and spoke about one student in particular that they are mentoring currently – a graduate student intern who, with the support of Dr. Simon and Dr. Icenhour, has been accepted to multiple National Science Foundation and DOE Fellowships. “I have never been so proud of a student as when we were proud of [our intern] at the end of the summer…It’s [his] accomplishment, and he did the work – but that showed me that I was doing something right as far as being a mentor, and that made me feel really proud.” (Icenhour)

Ultimately, both scientists are contributing a great deal not only to fusion and fission science, but to the field of computational science as a whole. Their journeys haven’t been easy, but their perseverance and commitment to bringing others along with them makes it possible. “My ability to be resilient – even when things go wrong, I keep going. Solving these problems is very challenging, and my ability to keep going and stay motivated is something I’m very proud of.” (Simon)

Trying to sum up a varied and impressive career can be an impossible task – especially when that career is still going strong. But as Rosina Bierbaum steps down from her position as Vice Chair of FAS’s Board of Directors, Jonathan Wilson sat down to find out more about how her science career began, and to glean just a few pearls of wisdom that she’s picked up during her time at the forefront of science policy in this country.

Jonathan Wilson: I know that you started off early on with an interest in marine biology. Where did that come from? 

Rosina Bierbaum: Well, I think it was because my dad had a small boat store. And the family  went water-skiing, canoeing, and sail-boating on the rivers and small lakes in Pennsylvania. I grew up in the smoggy steel town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, so visits to these pristine lakes and waters were special and close to my heart. And then I read Rachel Carson’s book, The Sea Around Us. And that really made me want to preserve the waters of the planet and especially got me excited about the oceans. It exposed me to this amazing example of women and science – and even now, there are still some antiquated ideas about women [not belonging] in science. 

On that note, I’m curious about when you were coming up early on, whether you got any kind of discouragement or pushback on pursuing a career in science or even studying science? 

Well, not really. Both my parents had not gone to college and really wished that they could have. And so they encouraged all of us to do so. We would wake up for every NASA space launch, no matter what time of day or night it was, to watch ‘science in action’ on our little black and white TV. My parents were always very interested in science. They encouraged me to enter the science fairs. My older brother did. My older sister did. And I did. So, I felt exactly the opposite – science was cool. And then in high school, I was lucky enough to have freshmen and sophomore science teachers who encouraged me to do after-school work with them to help prepare labs. In fact, they also encouraged me to take summer courses in math at Lehigh University, which was only six blocks away from me, but at that time didn’t yet enroll women. I actually never felt the discouragement that I know a lot of women have. My older sister is an atmospheric chemist. And she definitely felt it was much harder for her than I think it is for ecologists like me, because there were already more women in biology. When I think back on it, though, the two high school teachers who encouraged me were women in my crucial teen years. But most of my mentors in college and graduate school who also believed in me and encouraged me to go further were men. 

It’s interesting because you have a sister who’s a chemist. You have this glittering science policy career. It strikes me that your parents must have had this kind of innate curiosity about the world. Do you ever think, “Okay, if my dad or my mom had gone to college, this is what they would have done,“? Do they have scientific minds? 

Yes, I think so. My mom actually did become a nurse before the five children showed up. And so she was fascinated in all things medical for the rest of her life, and other disciplines of science, too. And Dad followed in his father’s footsteps initially, which was as a grocer and a butcher, in small-town Bethlehem. You had populations from all over the world who would walk to the steel plant near us and buy things from the store on the way home. For example, he had ultraviolet lamps to keep down bacteria. And so he was always thinking about, ‘Why does this work? How does this work?’ And he was very intrigued with our science experiments. So yes, I think he had an “engineering” mind. He did say he wished that he had been able to go to college. In his 70s, he actually took chemistry courses at the local community college, intending, of course, to impress my older sister! And I remember being in graduate school myself and we would often talk about homework assignments and the design of my experiments together. 

Reading about your early career and your education, it’s clear that pretty early on you set yourself apart. Of course, being a woman in a field dominated by men at the time, that’s one element. But there’s also the element of the tension back then between scientists and government policy workers. You’ve said that some of your scientist colleagues were very negative about you going to do a Congressional Fellowship – they weren’t crazy about you working with politicians. I’m curious if these tensions ever grated on you – being one of the few women in some of these scientific environments, and then being one of the few scientists eager to go work on Capitol Hill. 

Well, first of all, I was very lucky that I went right from graduate school into the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the late great “OTA”, which is only defunded [meaning, Bierbaum says, Congress could vote to fund it again and resurrect it].  But was done away with in the [Former Speaker Newt] Gingrich Congress. There I was able to learn how to work in a policy domain in a less scary or startling fashion, how to take what had been sort of a narrow and deep science PhD and expand into learning about politics and economics, the social science aspects, and the engineering aspects with a team. 

But it was true that I was exceedingly shocked the very first day that I was a congressional fellow. I went to a House Science Committee hearing, and it was on ozone depletion in the stratosphere. And there were eight men who were wonderful academic leaders in this field trying to speak to one member of Congress who was, of course, a lawyer, as most of them are – and it was a terrible conversation. There was really no information shared between the two sides. And then that whole team of experts from a ‘great University in the Northeast’ got offstage. And one of the environmental groups’ lawyers got up and talked to a lone member of Congress who was there and they were able to exchange real information. 

It was one of those epiphanies. I realized that all the hard and good scientific research and accomplishments out in the ivory towers that aren’t translated into usable information simply won’t get used. That made me think for the first time that maybe this shouldn’t just be a one-year congressional fellowship to learn how policy works, but to actually work to bring science into the policy world, and – equally important – to bring the policy needs back out to the academic world. 

Did it ever become frustrating or old to you – the work of translating between these two communities of politicians and scientists?

It was actually very exciting. What was surprising in conducting the first congressional assessment on acid rain was how little the scientific uncertainties stopped the Congress from deciding what to do! There were huge questions in the 1980s of which pollutants to control, over how big of a region, how much to reduce, and what ecological endpoints even exist. And they answered those questions fairly quickly: let’s go for sulfur dioxide first, and let’s tackle a big region of the country. About a 50% decrease in the loading of hydrogen ions in the Eastern lakes could come from about 50% emissions reduction from the Midwest. After quickly deciding that, then Congress spent 10 years arguing over who pays and the political aspects. 

My first boss, Bob Friedman, asked me to draw a diagram of how we were going to do this assessment, how Congress should think about the impacts of climate change, and how they could build it into the Clean Air Act of 1990. So, I drew one a very linear diagram – start by thinking about the sources. You should think about reactions as they’re moving through the atmosphere. You should think about deposition products. What will the impacts be?  And out of that, will fall the solutions. And he burst into laughter. Somewhere I still have that diagram today. To me, science was driving everything, and the miracle happens, and [the answer] falls out the bottom. He redrew it so that science was in the bottom right of the box, surrounded by societal concerns and interests, which were surrounded by, of course, the political exigencies and possibilities.

I learned that science is never the loudest voice in the room, but it must be in the room. And what it says and how it can guide regulations or legislation is something that became a principle that I tried to abide by in the years in the Congress and then in the White House. And so, it never got old, because it was really interesting to figure out how to be scientifically accurate, but also politically expedient, and translate things into usable information. This is very obviously very important, and very key to what FAS is trying to do these days. 

I’m curious how over the course of your career working in science policy and watching how science interacts with government policy – how you’ve seen that change. Have you seen science on the Hill and in the White House more often just following the winds of political trends? Or do you see real progression with how the government interacts with scientists and hard science? 

Well, I certainly would say in the 1980s, during the era of the acid rain bill and the reauthorization of the Clean Air Act, it was an interesting time because the federal agencies were not particularly helping the Congress think very hard about this. It was the time of [former Environmental Protection Agency administrator] Anne Gorsuch. And so this little congressional agency [OTA] was very useful. We actually analyzed 19 different acid rain bills in the course of three or four years. I do think, though, also there were more statespeople in the Congress than I feel there are today, and there was definitely more collaborative work. And one of the things that OTA required was that both the chair and the ranking member of committees had to ask for assessments, so it belonged to both sides. Then there was also a Technology Assessment Council of Democrats, Republicans, House, and Senate people who reviewed the process of producing it. So reports were considered relatively apolitical when completed. But I do think that it was a different time. 

I mean, the main thing that Congress has done on climate change was pass the 1990 Global Change Act. And thank goodness they created that because it requires an annual research plan. It requires an assessment every four years or so of the impacts [of climate change] on the U.S. And the 5^th National Climate Assessment that just came out has very strong indications of impacts already being felt: the issues of inequity, the issues of extreme events, costs to livelihood, regional impacts, etc.

So I think you’re right. There are political winds that blow. And timing is everything. Sometimes issues are more relevant, and sometimes they are not. But I feel that the steady collection of information that used to happen in the 1980s – and somewhat into the 1990s – from real debates, and committee hearings on topics, has changed. I would say back then in the Science Committee, the Democrats’ and Republicans’ staff would meet together to figure out who they were going to bring in as people to testify. And they would work on questions together. If the questions didn’t get asked by one side, they’d get asked by the other. I think partisanship has really diminished that, and I think the frequency of science-based committee hearings has decreased a lot too. You’ll often see, depending on whether it’s a Republican or Democrat committee chair – there might be just one person who defends a scientific point of view lined up against three or four people arguing against it, as opposed to a rigorous debate. 

So you spent two decades at the intersection of science and policy, serving in both the legislative and executive branches, and you even ran the first Environment Division of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology. Along the way, you were introduced to the Federation of American Scientists. So what made you want to serve on FAS’s board?

I knew about the Pugwash conferences – FAS came into being in response to nuclear weapons and seeking to prevent their use. So the same advisor – Bentley Glass – who urged me to do that Congressional fellowship, had been very active in Pugwash and speaking out against future arms’ races. And he got me involved in student Pugwash. I did that for many years, too, during my times at OTA and OSTP and even beyond, when I came to [the University of] Michigan. But over the years, John Holdren (former Chair of FAS and winner of 2 of its awards) had talked to me about FAS’s value. Henry C. Kelly was the President [of FAS], and he had worked with me at OSTP. He asked me to join the Board because FAS was thinking about energy and climate, and how to expand their mission into that area. I think I was added early on as a kind of “other”, for expertise in things slightly tangential, but within the orbit of future FAS work. 

I knew FAS is a group that really seeks to do good. And we were hoping we could engage more young scholars and stretch the confines of FAS into other security issues like climate change, energy, et cetera. 

It strikes me again – here you are at another point in your career where you’re unafraid to be a little bit of a pioneer, or different from everyone else at the table. You have this organization that is very historically nuclear-focused: FAS. And you’re not afraid to jump into that room with all these nuclear scientists and try something new. What was that like at first?

Well, one thing, Jonathan – I think you started by asking about being a woman in science. And I have to say for almost all of my career in the policy world, I hardly thought about that I was only the only woman in the room. But that was often true. It was in the policy world, where I was going to be the only scientist in the room. And I think again being undaunted by that it goes back to my parents, who believed in me, and said you could do anything you wanted to. But with FAS, I was in a room with scientists. They were different scientists than me. But it was fascinating. 

It was a world that was a bit alien. But again, it was trying to figure out what the role of FAS can be in these new and emerging issues and how to communicate it. So it actually didn’t feel as alien as it did being in the policy world [in government]. It was fun thinking about how FAS could move into these areas. And of course, I think the world of Gilman [Louie – current FAS board chair], who is just a fabulous chair and a joy to work with, he’ll be impossible to replace. 

I’ve been very happy to serve. I’m so happy about where it is now with the expansion into science policy, the issues of artificial intelligence, technology, and innovation, etc.. You’re in a great place to tackle emerging issues. I think of all of these as relevant to security issues, expanding the scope of FAS.  And, being a central place in D.C. with access to the Congress and the executive agencies and the NGO world is just fabulous. 

What are you going to be up to now? I mean – you’re not retiring. So you still have a lot of other stuff to do. So what interests you the most right now? 

I’m on many other boards. I’m on the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Board. And as you know, they do a huge amount of work on the environment and on basic science. I find that really interesting: to think about how you can effect change both in practice and advance science research. 

The most time-consuming duty is my work as chair of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel of the Global Environment Facility. The Global Environment Facility exists to implement the environmental treaties in the less developed countries. And so my little team of scientists screens every project of $2 million or greater, and tries to make sure that there’s a sound theory of change, that the outcome desired can be achieved, and that they’ve thought about climate risk screening, both the effect of the project on climate change, but also if the outcome will persist as the climate changes. 

I’m also on Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, and we train thousands of young climate scholars all around the world. I serve on the Environmental and Energy Study Institute Board that briefs the Congress on key environmental issues. I’m on the Board of the Wildlife Conservation Society working to save wildlife and wild places around the world. I’m on the Global CO2 Initiative board at the University of Michigan and on an advisory board for Colorado State, developing an environmental program for undergraduate and graduate students. I teach both at the University of Michigan, mainly on Climate Adaptation, and at the University of Maryland on Science Policy with new FAS Board member and another member of the former Obama PCAST, Jim Gates, who’s a fabulous string theorist. And we’re able to pull in graduate students from the sciences, because he’s a physicist, and graduate students from public policy – because that’s the school I’m in at Maryland. And we do create a wonderful clash of cultures. We require that the students write policy memos. And each year, some of the students then decide, ‘Hey, maybe this is a noble profession – going into science policy!’. 

As you step down from your time with FAS, what excites you about what FAS can accomplish in coming years? What would you like to see FAS either expand into or do more of? 

Well, I think one of the things that they now have the capability to do is to work with the next generation of FAS scholars. I think FAS has an incredible potential to do convenings on a variety of topics, also potentially at a variety of universities. I think this generation hasn’t had to think about the core of FAS, nuclear security issues, as much as they should. Certainly with us celebrating Oppenheimer [at 2023’s FAS Public Service Awards], the time is ripe to do that. But I also think holding convenings on other particularly contentious issues makes sense.  I think FAS can be seen as a neutral facilitator to bring together both sides of an issue – whether it be on artificial intelligence or other science and technology topics – and bring together academics, the NGO community, and people from the Hill or the agencies to talk through some of these things. It certainly has proven that FAS, being where it is and being led as it is, has its ear to the rail, as it were, for upcoming topics. I think that being an enabler of wise discussion and communication on emerging topics is so much needed, especially in this time of both polarization and an increase in misinformation.  

I was both horrified and heartened that the World Economic Forum listed misinformation as its fifth most worrisome risk over the next decade. The first four were all environmental, but misinformation was the next one, and then misuse of AI was the sixth one. And so all the security issues – environmental security, et cetera – are, I think, squarely in FAS’s domain. I think it’s a time of incredible growth and potential for FAS. And I just can’t wait to see what it becomes in this next generation.

The U.S. bioeconomy, the sector of the economy that is touched by biology, is valued at ~$1 trillion and predicted to grow to over $30 trillion in the next two decades. With such enormous potential, ensuring the U.S. bioeconomy’s continued economic growth and global leadership has become a matter of importance for national security. Despite this massive potential, the U.S. bioeconomy, and specifically the biomanufacturing industry, is currently limited by the lack of standards in place for the sector. 

The need for standards within the biomanufacturing sector has been discussed at length by experts, and the U.S. government has acknowledged and prioritized the establishment of standards by creating a National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technologies. Both the CHIPS & Science Act of 2022, and the Visions, Needs, and Proposed Actions for the Data for the Bioeconomy Initiative (2023), highlight the need for standardization as critical to the advancement of our domestic biomanufacturing sector. Furthermore, the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB), a commission tasked with reviewing advancements in biotechnology and its nexus with national security, stated in their interim report the importance of creating standards for this sector as a matter of national security.

Most recently, The Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Community Party (Select Committee on the CCP), held a hearing, “Growing Stakes: The Bioeconomy and American National Security”, that focused on the threats posed by adversaries in the industry. During the hearing, Congressman Jake Auchincloss (D-MA, 4th District), entered into the record a bipartisan letter that contained recommendations around developing and implementing standards for the bioeconomy that urged action from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). 

To get a better understanding of how Congress and the Select Committee on the CCP view the need for standards for the bioeconomy, FAS interviewed Congressman Jake Auchincloss.

FAS: In your opinion, why does creating standards for biotechnology and biomanufacturing boost economic competitiveness and national security? What benefits does this pose for different regions across the nation?

Congressman Auchincloss: Standards are important in every industry to solve coordination and collective action problems, and the government plays a critical role in establishing them so that markets can work more effectively. Standards provide concrete benchmarks for individuals and companies within American industry, all of whom need a stable environment to make long-term investments. This sentiment is echoed in the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology’s interim report which has noted that “biomanufacturing faces barriers to innovation because of…lack of standardization.” 

With standardization, more time can be spent innovating, researching, and building instead of compensating for uncertainty due to a lack of definitions that carry the weight of the federal government. Establishing standards will only increase productivity. As I stated in the letter I entered into the record during the Select Committee on the CCP’s hearing around the bioeconomy, “standardization will help advance industrial biomanufacturing, create a more resilient and dynamic supply chain, and establish a durable, competitive U.S. bioeconomy. In turn, strengthening the U.S. bioeconomy will improve Americans’ well-being, promote well-paying jobs, and create a competitive and advantageous U.S. science and technology enterprise to achieve our national and societal goals.”

What is the role of international collaboration in creating standards for biotechnology and biomanufacturing in light of increased tensions with China?

International collaboration is critical to the success of biotechnology, but we must ensure we are working with reliable and responsible partners. For the U.S. to remain a leader in the bioeconomy, the U.S. must ensure its domestic standards become the international benchmark. 

As we standardize the bioeconomy, we must also set standards for ethical intent and conduct. As such, there are some companies whose loyalty does not side with responsible science. We shouldn’t partner with companies like BGI, whose technologies have clear ties to the CCP’s repression and ongoing ethnic cleansing of its Uyghur communities. The increased tensions are a direct result of President Xi Jinping’s disregard for human rights, and excluding the CCP from projects that could be weaponized against their own people is the correct response.

Where does the U.S. bioeconomy stand in comparison with China or other countries?

China isn’t currently ahead but they are neck-and-neck with the U.S. because of the rate at which they are investing in their domestic bioeconomy. That’s already showing up in their patent and publication volume. The CCP’s R&D investment in biotechnology increased from $26 million USD in 1986 to $99 million USD in 2005. From 2008 to 2020, their investments increased to $3.8 billion USD. China’s spending on research and development overall climbed 10.3 percent to 2.44 trillion Chinese yuan ($378 billion USD) in 2020, according to the nation’s National Bureau of Statistics. Further, according to the health care information company IQVIA, China was the world’s second-largest national biopharmaceutical market in 2017, worth $122.6 billion USD. 

Via Rhodium Group

The 117th Congress and Biden Administration edged science and technology funding upwards, but Republicans have proposed slashing federal R&D funding. We are moving in the wrong direction with this self-defeating approach. Congress must prioritize basic science: the curiosity-driven, peer-reviewed research that the private sector won’t fund and the public sector under-funds. We can start by expanding NIH funding and fully appropriating the $170 billion Science portion of the Chips and Science law that was authorized throughout the next ten years.

NIST has been directed to create standards and metrology for the U.S. bioeconomy through the FY24 appropriation bills, the FY25 Presidential Budget, the Bioeconomy EO, and from the letter that you submitted into the record during the hearing “Growing Stakes: The Bioeconomy & American Security.” Given all these priorities, what needs to happen in order for NIST to fulfill their directives for the bioeconomy?

There needs to be continued pressure applied to ensure NIST is prioritizing this important work. Congress can further support NIST by appropriating more funding for them to achieve the work laid out in front of them, as I have advocated during the current appropriations process.

The recent AI EO also directs NIST with many different tasks. Is the AI EO overtasking NIST and making bioeconomy related efforts an afterthought for them?

The AI EO can be implemented simultaneously with standardization efforts, if NIST is appropriately resourced. But those who think that AI is more important than biotech are wrong, and should not point NIST in that direction. Care should be taken not to duplicate work unnecessarily, but all of these tasks assigned to NIST will take time and labor. Again, NIST needs to be adequately funded to do all the work it is being asked to do.

In the letter, you suggest NIST collaborate with Manufacturing USA institutes, NIIMBL & BioMADE. However, in the Department of Commerce’s FY25 budget request, they ask for $37M for the Manufacturing USA program, the same amount that they have received since FY23. Should Congress prioritize and raise funding levels for programs like Manufacturing USA and why would this be important for ensuring a competitive edge for the U.S. bioeconomy?

Absolutely. Many federal R&D programs are continuously underfunded, even as they are tasked with more responsibilities. The programs we fund reflect our priorities. We need to be prioritizing science, technology, and centers of excellence for manufacturing to gain that competitive edge. Increasing funding would give these agencies and programs the resources they need to set standards and increase R&D. That’s why I sent a letter to the House Committee on Appropriations asking for a 10 percent increase above FY24 enacted funding levels for NIST, Manufacturing USA, and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

Lastly, in your opinion, what potential does the U.S. bioeconomy have that we are not capitalizing on and what would you like to see occur for the U.S. bioeconomy in the next year.

I would like to see standardization, or at least the beginning of standardization, within the next year. With standardization for industrial biomanufacturing in place, the U.S. bioeconomy will be able to reach new heights and enable our talented citizens to delve deeper into their research without being hindered by the lack of baseline definitions. Fully appropriating the $170 billion that was authorized for the Science portion of CHIPS and Science would be the step in the right direction to maintain U.S. innovation and competitiveness in biotechnology and biomanufacturing. Furthermore, we need state capacity and funding for R&D; which includes the staffing and programming for regulation and standardization and also the funding for peer-reviewed basic research. Finally, we need to expand the productive capacity of the bioeconomy through workforce development compacts that bring together employers, educators, and trade associations together; through skilled immigration pathways; and through technology-agnostic tax credits that are transferable for R&D and biomanufacturing. In the next year, I am working towards legislation that advances all of these different components to strengthen and secure the U.S. bioeconomy.

The Federation of American Scientists values diversity of thought and believes that a range of perspectives — informed by evidence — is essential for discourse on scientific and societal issues. Contributors allow us to foster a broader and more inclusive conversation. We encourage constructive discussion around the topics we care about.

By their own account, Grace Wickerson was always an organizer and activist for societal progress. As early as high school, Grace educated peers about interpersonal violence, even convincing their school board to require high school students to complete a violence reduction class. 

But what attracted them to FAS’ Day One Project three years ago was the possibility of pushing for change at the federal level.

“I think the federal government is like this daunting kind of conglomerate that is very confusing to navigate,” Wickerson says. “It’s very hard to know where you can actually make a substantial impact.”

Wickerson was a few years into their doctoral work in material science and engineering at Northwestern University when the prospect of learning how to write a policy memo with FAS cropped up at a National Science Policy Network virtual conference.

Like Christopher Gillespie – they became part of Day One’s Early Career Science Policy Accelerator and published their policy memo “Combating Bias in Medical Innovation”, which highlighted the ongoing lack of diversity in federally-funded clinical trial pools, and the downstream impacts of that lack.

Wickerson then went on to become a Policy Entrepreneurship Fellow with FAS, and used the time and mentorship to meet with lawmakers and federal officials. Their work even led the University of Maryland Medical Systems (UMMS) and medical-records corporation EPIC to commissioning studies to explore the connection between COVID-19 deaths and inaccurate pulse oximeters (pulse ox) due to racial bias in current pulse oximeter technology.

Wickerson says one thing that most academics – and even many others with an interest in policy – don’t understand is that no matter how great an idea is, it won’t make a difference if it isn’t seen by the right people.

“I think the thing that’s often missing is the platform for that policy recommendation,” Wickerson says. “You need a place for your recommendations to live – a place through which they will be seen and regarded.”

Another thing that FAS helped with, Wickerson says, is a complicated thing that can be summed up in one word: confidence. 

“I think there was a lot of necessary confidence building in terms of being ready to reach out to a lot of different stakeholders – and just getting the chutzpah to just go for it,” they say. 

Wickerson is still very interested in fighting for change in the way the government regulates medical devices – but they’ve also expanded their portfolio to different types of health policy as FAS’ first full-time Health Equity Policy manager. A particular focus now is the health impacts of extreme heat.

“There are a lot of people with great ideas,” Wickerson says. “But often, the actual route to implementation is a much harder and more committed path. I think the framework of policy entrepreneurship is really about making ideas happen, and finding all the different routes to seeing something to fruition. It provides that framework that often doesn’t exist for folks wanting to make a change in the world but don’t know how that happens. That’s how it’s impacted my life: it gives me the hope and belief that things can actually change. There’s just a need for a person behind that change.”

The Office of Technology Transfers is holding a series of webinars on cutting-edge technologies being developed at the DOE National Labs – and the transformative applications they could have globally for clean energy. We sat down with the people behind these technologies – the experts who make that progress possible. These interviews highlight why a strong energy workforce is so important, from the lab into commercial markets. These interviews have been edited for length and do not necessarily reflect the views of the DOE. Be sure to attend DOE’s next National Lab Discovery Series webinar on wireless power transfer technology on Tuesday, April 30.

Dr. Omer Onar was always interested in solving mechanical problems. From his initial engineering degrees in Turkey to his selection as a Weinberg Fellow at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Dr. Onar has been pushing forward the field of power electronics and electromagnetics for almost two decades. His work today may enable faster, more secure wireless charging for electric vehicle fleets, mobile devices, household appliances, and more.

Beginnings at the Illinois Institute of Technology 

After completing both an undergraduate and graduate degree in electrical engineering in his home country of Turkey, Dr. Onar chose to pursue his PhD at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). Although he received offers from multiple prestigious universities, he chose to attend IIT because of its personalized approach to research and study. “They had a young and energetic team who all loved working together. I was basically told that if I went to one of the larger institutions, I wouldn’t see my advisor for the first few years.” 

Because of the standards of the program, its strong pace, and the quality of the professors and advisors, Dr. Onar was able to publish multiple journal articles and receive several citations of his work, all before completing the degree. 

Throughout all of his degrees, Dr. Onar cultivated a lifelong passion for understanding the mechanical side of engineering. “In high school, I wasn’t as much interested in electrical engineering, things like magnetics and optics that are more virtual – I liked the mechanics and being able to touch and see the things I was working on.”

A Weinberg Fellow at Oak Ridge 

Before he even graduated from IIT, Dr. Onar had an offer from Oak Ridge National Laboratory to become a Weinberg Fellow. The Weinberg Fellowship, named after the former director of the Lab, is targeted at exceptional researchers and is only offered to two or three scientists lab-wide. It not only gave Dr. Onar his start at the Lab, but also allowed him to spend 50% of his time pursuing independent research in his first few years – an invaluable experience for any engineer. 

“Since [joining the Lab], I have been so enthusiastic about working here – I’ve never looked at any other opportunities because the Lab offers such a great research environment. We work with academia, industry, and research, so I have the ability to reach out to all flavors of work environments.” 

After 14 years of working at the Lab, Dr. Onar has had the opportunity to work on a number of different projects related to electrical engineering and power systems. His research led him to focus primarily on wireless power transfer technologies and especially the wireless charging of electric vehicles. 

The Power of Wireless Transfer

Dr. Onar’s research has massive implications for a decarbonized world – not just in how we charge electric vehicles, but also in terms of fuel efficiency, health and safety, human capital planning, critical minerals, and internet access. He’s been working on developing technologies for wireless power transfer – more simply, tech that would allow for wireless charging of electronics. 

More advanced wireless power transfer will open up what’s possible for entire industries. It will allow individual consumers to charge their electric vehicles through the surface they drive or park on, without plugging it in – which is a great convenience. But more importantly, the tech could be used to improve employee safety. Drivers for companies with large vehicle fleets are contracted for just that – driving. When companies use electric fleets, it requires an entire additional set of infrastructure for charging that those drivers are not qualified to use safely. This requires additional employees whose sole responsibility is to unplug and plug in vehicles at the beginning and end of the day. Wireless charging automates the whole process and reduces costs while retaining productive and safe jobs. 

Wireless charging will also allow for more efficient charging overall. A common concern with electric vehicles is the lack of available charging infrastructure and the long time it takes to fully charge. The technology that Dr. Onar is working on will allow cars to pull off the interstate, into a charging area, charge for 20 minutes without having to plug the vehicle in, and keep driving. This could be extended to commercial heavy-duty vehicles as well – replacing heavy emitting diesel trucks with electric ones and enabling frequent, opportunistic, and ubiquitous wireless charging systems. Wireless charging would allow drivers to load and unload deliveries while continuing to charge, without exposure to harmful pollution. 

The Future of Power Systems

Dr. Onar is shaping the technology horizon as well – working with wide bandgap semiconductors and electric motors that no longer require rare earth minerals in their construction. Using materials other than silicon in semiconductors, like silicon carbide or gallium nitride, could enable more applications for wireless power transfer, such as long distance wireless charging, possibly using one transmitter and multiple receivers on each device. For example, imagine walking into a coffee shop and your phone or laptop begins to charge just like the wireless internet connection. In future, this concept could allow for entire homes with refrigerators, washers and dryers, and entertainment systems that are all powered wirelessly. 

One barrier to expanding the use of electric vehicles is the lack of reliable access to critical and rare earth minerals used in manufacturing magnets in their motors. The U.S. lacks mining and recycling facilities at the price point and scale needed to increase construction. But Dr. Onar’s team has been researching how to design wound rotor synchronous machines that will eliminate the use of those permanent magnets and help shore up domestic energy security. 

“We don’t want to have to rely on another country’s resources in our transportation systems… we’re applying our experience in wireless power transfer systems into the wound rotor synchronous motors, developing and validating enabling technologies to address the challenges in these motors – each one brings us a step closer to commercialization.”

Some of these applications are several years away, but they are a glimpse of what could be possible with the research currently underway in Dr. Onar’s office. 

Strengthening the Engineering Community 

Dr. Onar has had the opportunity to work with exceptional teams over the course of his career thus far – and some of his proudest accomplishments are the recognition they’ve received on a national level. As a grad student  Dr. Onar received two scholarships in addition to his Weinberg Fellowship, and as a Lab employee has received a number of awards for his performance. In 2016, his team received an R&D 100 award – a highly prestigious award recognizing outstanding research and innovation – for their work developing the world’s first 20 – kilowatt wireless charging system for passenger cars. While most systems were designed for 6.6 kW power rating back then, their 20-kW system meant 3 times faster charging with very high efficiency that exceeded 94% – a huge step forward. In addition, his team has received awards from UT-Battelle and the Department of Energy, in addition to several best paper and best presentation awards. 

“The R&D 100 awards are the Oscars of research and innovation – it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to receive one,” he said, with understated pride. Americans should applaud; his work today to improve technologies from our phones to our vehicles will be instrumental to how we live tomorrow. 

In addition to his professional recognition, Dr. Onar is actively supporting the next generation of scientists. He contributes his time to the engineering community, serving as the general chair of the Institutes of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC) in 2022 and the general chair of the IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference and Expo (ITEC) in 2017. His continuous dedication to advancing technology and his contributions to the field at large have already had an impact far beyond his individual research, and will continue to for decades to come.

Alexa White, the 2023 recipient of the FAS Public Service Policy Entrepreneurship Award, says her journey into the world of science policy started back when she was earning her undergraduate degree in biology and chemistry at Howard University.

She says the gulf between her scientific studies and her lived experience began to gnaw at her more and more.

“It kind of felt like I was in an ivory tower,” White said on stage at the FAS Public Service Awards ceremony. “It took me a long time to relate the science that I was doing to the background that I come from – my identity as a Black woman.

“I was an ecologist that studied lizards, so I was chasing lizards around the deserts of Arizona and trying to understand their habitats. When I would talk to my parents, they would be like, ‘Oh, that’s so fun. What does that really mean? How does that translate into our lives and what it means to the people around you?’”

Conversations like that one led White to start thinking about environmental justice and the role that data can play in sound – or unsound – science policy. She and a friend came up with the idea for the AYA Research Institute – the subject of the policy memo that emerged from White’s participation in FAS/Day One’s Early Career Science Policy Accelerator.

“The AYA [name] stands for the African Adinkra symbol for resilience,” White explained, “and so we really thought that that was a good representation of what we thought about environmental justice and how we came to be environmental justice leaders. The work that we do handles technology as well as the policy aspects of what environmental justice can bring to the field.”

White’s journey as an environmental justice leader was just getting started. She followed up her policy memo by joining the first cohort of FAS’ Policy Entrepreneurship Fellows (PEF). During her time as a PEF, White joined with FAS staffers conducting a thorough assessment of the Biden Administration’s progress living up to its promises in the Justice40 Initiative. The analysis helped identify areas where progress was on track and others where it was lagging. Most notably, it helped identify yet untapped areas in clean transit and transportation, urban forestry and urban greening, which could yield greater progress than anticipated. White, together FAS staff, had an opportunity to brief both the Director of Environmental Justice at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, as well as the leadership of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (WHEJAC).

“I’m really glad to see that environmental justice is becoming a thing,” White said. “[Two years ago] it was not something that anyone knew about, and the Biden administration has done a really good job with Justice40 and pushing the language, pushing the funding, and now it’s a question of how to use [the data].”

Now White is completing her doctorate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan and plans to defend this spring. Her dissertation research focuses on biophysical indicators of sustainable agriculture and international climate governance pertaining to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #2: To End Hunger.

White was awarded the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Conservation Leadership Award in 2020 for her research and profound discoveries in food sovereignty and food justice, and in 2023, FAS honored her with its first ever Policy Entrepreneurship Award at its FAS Public Service Awards ceremony, where she joined fellow 2023 honorees filmmaker Christopher Nolan, Senators Chuck Schumer and Todd Young, and former OSTP interim director Alondra Nelson.

“I come from a family of sharecroppers, so within Texas and North Carolina, my grandparents were working the land, and I didn’t really pay attention to that when I was younger because I didn’t really understand the relevance of it,” White told the audience at the awards ceremony. “I didn’t understand the history and how it connected to the science that I practice today. And that alongside of, I’m from Newark, New Jersey, and so there’s a lot of factories there, a lot of different kinds of problems with the water pollution and lead. It wasn’t until I was in my Ph.D at the University of Michigan that I understood that I was empowered. I had the ability to make changes through my work, and through a critical analysis of data. So I definitely think that I’m kind of carrying on the work of my family as well as my peers.”

This series of interviews spotlights scientists working across the country to implement the Department of Energy’s massive efforts to transition the country to clean energy, and improve equity and address climate injustice along the way. The Federation’s clean energy workforce report discusses the challenges and opportunities associated with ramping up this dynamic, in-demand workforce. These interviews have been edited for length and do not necessarily reflect the views of the DOE. Discover more DOE spotlights here.  

Dr. Rebecca Glaser started her career as an engineer in academia. But her interest in the field’s applications for clean energy drove her to take a chance and join the Department of Energy. Now at the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, Dr. Glaser is paving the way for cutting-edge energy storage and battery technologies to scale up. With experience in research, commercialization, and delivering clean energy directly to communities, Dr. Glaser’s background makes her an exceptional example of a clean energy champion. 

Discovering the Environmental Application of Materials Science

Dr. Glaser grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., and was no stranger to the world of public service. Surrounded by an environmentally conscious community, she volunteered throughout high school. She had an early interest in math and science, born of a desire to learn more about the world – but was not sure how to turn it into a career. 

In her first year of college, Dr. Glaser ended up in a seminar series focused on the technology of energy that was full of senior undergraduate and graduate students who were all involved in materials science research. Although it was a new field to her, it combined her interest in chemistry and physics with obvious applications – sparking her love for that work. “I realized that all of the people teaching [the seminar] whose research I found interesting were all in materials science, and most of the energy applications I was looking at were being done through that field.”

But even with a field of study in mind, Dr. Glaser was unsure of where to take her passions. She pursued a PhD to dive deeper into batteries and concentrate on one area of technology. “I knew exactly what technology I wanted to work on, but I didn’t know where I wanted to put those skills, whether it was industry or academia. But I didn’t know government was an option.”

Applying the Research

In grad school, however, she explored roads less traveled. While peers were doing internships at Intel and Tesla, Dr. Glaser applied for a position at Resources for the Future, a policy research and analysis organization. As part of the internship, she gained insight into how her work was connected to real-world issues. 

“We were writing a case study about coal communities that were working through energy transitions – I focused on one in Ohio, where they were losing or about to lose their coal-fired power plant. We were looking at the effectiveness of government intervention.  I was interviewing economic development officials in counties across Ohio about their experiences with federal grants and the communities that benefit from those programs. All in the middle of my very technical battery PhD.”

It was a valuable experience for Dr. Glaser. When she was finishing her PhD and applying for government fellowships, it gave her additional perspectives on how she could use her expertise to make a difference. 

Battery Research and Development at  the DOE

Dr. Glaser started her work in government as a ORISE Fellow in DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) – maybe on the surface an unlikely choice for someone interested in batteries, but not to Dr. Glaser. “You can’t really go forward with solar without energy storage – you can only get to a certain point, and I wanted to be that storage expert for them.” 

She credits the experience with giving her a lot of learning opportunities, acting as a resource for storage issues, working on program development in topics like recycling, siting, and more. “I learned a lot about how government works – all of its intricacies. It gave me a broader appreciation for the issues behind the science and really helped direct me towards what I wanted to do next.” 

Dr. Glaser moved into a position as a Project Officer at the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations last March and then to a position as a Project Manager, focusing full-time on her passion for energy storage. “It’s an exciting time to be in DOE – it was really cool to graduate in 2021 and then have legislation passed that created the office I now work in.” As a project manager, she helps steward these new programs, select projects for the office to fund, and support award negotiations. There’s a long road ahead, but she is excited for their potential impact. 

OCED handles a wide range of burgeoning clean energy technologies – and Dr. Glaser feels privileged to be on the cutting edge of what’s possible in energy storage. “Energy storage is so diverse and interesting – I’m excited to see how the different technologies play out and interact with each other, and what I’m able to learn about them.” The office has a hefty mandate, but its ability to respond to support the energy storage needs of the present as well as the decades to come will make a huge difference in achieving a net-zero future.

Stiff Competition to Apply Skills that Make Impactful Contributions

But an office is only as good as the staff that run it. Too often, the world-class talent that keeps the mission going are not recognized for their high-level expertise. Dr. Glaser emphasized that getting to support this vital work is because of years of hard work on her part – and that’s one of her biggest accomplishments. 

“The transition I was able to make [into government] is a really hard thing to do It’s giving up the expected path – to go into industry, into a lab, or into a postdoc.”

It’s important to note that SETO, the office Dr. Glaser did her fellowship in has a competitive application pool. She credits her success making the transition to the work she put in conducting informational interviews, taking on work like her internship at Resources for the Future, attending conferences – what she calls the “slow systematic work of understanding this new path and how to get yourself there.”

DOE employees like Dr. Glaser put in that effort because they know the potential for impact is so great. “I am doing the most I can be doing with my job, with the skill set I have. This is the most impactful thing I can do with my skills.”

Christopher Gillespie was deep into his PhD work in soil ecology and soil biogeochemistry when he heard about FAS’ Day One Project and decided to take a crack at writing policy.

Excited by the prospect of combining the rigor of his science training with his passion for dismantling systemic institutional discrimination, he applied for Day One’s Early Career Science Policy Accelerator and was accepted. He completed his policy memo on urban revitalization, “Putting Redlines in the Green: Economic Revitalization Through Innovative Neighborhood Markets”, in the summer of 2022. “Redlining” may be a term that evokes zoning policies of the mid-20th century, but its effects are still being felt today in communities of color, and its legacies are still costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Gillespie’s memo detailed a five-step action plan for addressing inequity and decreasing the burden on taxpayers.

“I was able to use all my lived experiences, and my understanding of the sciences, both economically and in terms of bioinformatics,” he says. “And that was really cool for me, because I was able to really take all these different areas and create an interdisciplinary approach to change.”

But one taste of policy entrepreneurship wasn’t enough. “Once I finished [the policy memo], I just wanted more,” he says.

Luckily for Gillespie – FAS was growing right along with him, and soon announced its Policy Entrepreneurship Fellowship (PEF). Again, Gillespie jumped at the opportunity. The fellowship’s aim was to empower and guide Day One memo authors to gain further traction for their policy ideas among practitioners and decision-makers, and pursue more opportunities for impact.

Gillespie was selected for the inaugural PEF cohort, and used his fellowship to craft a short film documenting the impact of redlining in several different cities. He says FAS gave him not only the tools but also the freedom to explore different ways to make an impact.

“That’s one reason I’ve had such a great time,” he says. “I’m going to come into a space and be myself completely, and FAS has supported me in taking that wherever it goes, whether it’d be a film or whether it be a white paper.”

While he’d love to see his policy proposal addressing redlining become law or end up in an Executive Order from the President, Gillespie says another way to make an impact is through relationships.

“I’m helping to build an ecosystem of actors who are doing this work – people in cities who are making these moves,” he says. “I was really able to see that it’s not that the work is not being done, – it’s that I didn’t see how much work was being done. Now it comes down to connecting those ecosystems and supporting those movements.”

Next, Gillespie will be honing his interdisciplinary approach to making a policy impact within government as a Food Supply Chain Impact Fellow at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“The coolest part of my experience has been – how my creativity was supported, and how that led to doors opening to opportunities that could help the nation in a different way than I expected.”

What is policy entrepreneurship? It is the practice of recognizing a problem and proposing a solution through policy. It is central to our work at FAS and our Day One Project, which presents actionable plans to every presidential administration, ready for implementation starting on “day one.” Submit your policy ideas to one of our ongoing idea challenges.

Monica Sanders is a FAS policy entrepreneur fellow (PEF) originally from Louisiana. Her stellar career of service includes work as a lawyer, scholar, and founder of The Undivide Project. Undivide is an organization dedicated to the legal and policy changes needed to address the intersections between digital and climate equity. One Undivide initiative uses IoT (internet of things) to build climate resilience solutions in disaster-impacted communities. It was through this work that she originally connected with FAS.

Building a Digital Justice Framework

“Since I started my organization, I have been pondering this concept of digital justice and what it means in a world that is increasingly digitized and climate-impacted at the same time. Broadly, I decided that the components would be: democratized access to information, economic opportunity, and training for future and equitable access to resilience-building resources,” she explains. 

This realization brought her to the FAS Day One Project, where she formalized her ideas into a policy memo titled Using A Digital Justice Framework To Improve Disaster Preparation And Response. In it she outlines both the needs for this framework in the context of climate-driven weather disasters, and proposes solutions for implementation.

The memo development process introduced Monica to scientists and technologists who agreed with her thesis and saw similar needs in the disaster-relief capacity of the government. The result was a second policy memo, jointly authored with Shefali Juneja Lakhina and Melanie Gall:, Increasing National Resilience Through An Open Disaster Data Initiative. It advocates for enhanced data-sharing across government to more quickly and effectively respond to emergencies.

“Green Jobs”: Ever-Growing Yet Invisible Classification

After joining as an FAS Fellow, Monica continued her digital justice work with a focus on “green” technology-focused jobs and opportunities. While “green jobs” are an ever-expanding growth area, the government’s official “green jobs” classification in the Bureau Labor Statistics (BLS) was frozen after 2013. In effect, she argues, these jobs are invisible.

The classification needs updating, she says, to include a broader range of federal jobs that are essential to fighting climate change and which are evolving rapidly with the advent of technology. Updating BLS job classification is crucial for measuring effectiveness of government programs to deploy job opportunities more equitably across the country. Though BLS is largely known for publishing the unemployment numbers, the agency is doing a lot of work critical to fighting climate change.

“These are important to resource allocations at the state and local level and to send signals about the contours of certain jobs and industries to stakeholders outside of government,” she explains. She details why updating the BLS to define “green” and “tech” jobs are necessary to deploy job opportunities at scale in Revitalizing Federal Jobs Data: Unleashing the Potential of Emerging Roles. 

Policy Entrepreneurship a Path to Change 

Monica’s work as a PEF involves a lot of research and outreach. “For me, two of the most important aspects of the fellowship were the engagement and learning opportunities. I had never thought about policy in an entrepreneurial way, nor had a deep dive into how to manage some of these nuanced relationships. I worked in the legislature, but my role was mainly about looking at the constitutionality and legality of certain issues, not in designing interdisciplinary and inter- and intra-governmental initiatives.”

She encourages people to consider policy entrepreneurship as a path to change.

“Litigation can take years if an issue even makes it to court. Administrative orders and rulemaking are often retroactive — meaning the solution comes after a harm has happened. With policy entrepreneurship there is an opportunity to 1) be proactive, and 2) make an impact in a reasonable amount of time. Given the number of existential crises we must collectively confront, I have found policy entrepreneurship to be a fruitful avenue towards doing some of that work.”

The original elevator pitch for the Day One Project wasn’t hard to boil down: 100 actionable science and technology policy ideas we could deliver to the victor in January 2021 – ideas ready for the new president on “Day One” of their time in the White House. We saw opportunities for great progress no matter which party emerged victorious – and so we focused on ideas that could garner bipartisan support. We couldn’t be prouder of the policy innovations that surfaced at the outset of Day One – from Mike Stebbins and Geoff Ling’s memo laying out the case for ARPA-H, an agency since launched and funded with over $2.5B in appropriations, to Adam Marblestone and Sam Rodriques’ memo proposing the creation of “Focused Research Organizations,” which has led to the creation of a network of philanthropically-supported research initiatives as well as inspired a number of new federal initiatives. These are but two examples from a very long list.

This is how policy actually changes. We believe our emphasis on concisely outlining the challenge, opportunities and specific steps for policymakers to take represents a leap forward for how technologists, scientists, and those with lived experience could make a difference. I add the last category because it’s often overlooked in policy circles but is where some of the best ideas can originate. At FAS, we take our role in creating the platform to democratize the policy making process seriously and seek to include an array of voices in creating sound and equitable policy.

The “secret sauce” of the Day One Project isn’t just the format of the policy recommendations we publish. It’s the “policy entrepreneurs” who make them happen: the people who make up FAS staff and policy contributors. My colleague Erica Goldman recently wrote eloquently in Issues in Science and Technology about why it’s so important that more scientists take the plunge into policy entrepreneurship. She highlighted the examples of policy entrepreneurs such as Julian Elliott, who rose to the challenge we posed before the last presidential election – individuals who came to us with bold policy ideas, but were also willing to put in the work to hammer those ideas into actionable forms, engage in dialogue with policymakers, and keep pushing for progress, celebrating both incremental and monumental steps toward change.

The thinking behind the Day One Project now has a track record of success – and the proud history of the Federation of American Scientists behind it. Since that initial batch of policy memos we unveiled nearly five years ago, we have launched 18 accelerators, with 183 participants – resulting in 132 additional policy memos and recommendations – all driven by policy entrepreneurs. We continue to mine for talent and remain committed to helping these individuals and teams refine their ideas – and it’s continuing to pay off. Groundwork laid in part by Lauren Shum’s memo about lead pollution from aviation fuel helped spur an endangerment finding from the EPA just this past October.

Now we sit on the verge of another Presidential election – and again FAS sees opportunity for meaningful, science-based policy innovations that can appeal to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. That’s why we’re launching Day One 2025 – and renewing the call for bold policy ideas, grounded in science and evidence, that can tackle the country’s biggest challenges and bring us closer to the prosperous, equitable and safe future that we all hope for.

For this new effort, FAS has identified four priority areas where ideas and action are most sorely needed:

Government Capacity Policy and practice changes that enhance government’s ability to deliver, spanning talent, spending, culture, and more. 

One of my favorite Day One Project memos in this vein is about common-sense reforms to accelerate the “Authority to Operate” process for government tech by Mary Lazzeri, Dayton Williams, Greg Elin and Fen Labalme. 

Emerging Technologies and Global Risk The promise and peril of artificial intelligence, and the resurgent threat of nuclear conflict; emerging biorisks; safeguarding against planetary threats; all of these fields require robust approaches that will leverage technological progress, new policy frameworks and collaboration.

A great example in this vein is about establishing an AI Center of Excellence to address maternal health disparities by Kumba Sennaar and Grace Wickerson. 

Innovation and Competitiveness How can the U.S. better convert the strength of its R&D enterprise into shared prosperity and train it on the biggest challenges of the 21st century? 

We need more ideas to accelerate the development of thriving regional innovation ecosystems, foster the development of a K-12 education system that prepares students for tomorrow’s challenges, expand access to STEM talent pipelines, accelerate translation of promising innovations from lab to market, and more. 

Mark Lemley and Orly Lobel’s (now partially implemented) proposal for an array of strategies to ban non-competes to boost industry competition is a wonderful model of a memo focused on these questions.

Energy and Environment  Steps to accelerate a clean energy transition and ensure a world resilient to a changing climate. 

FAS’s own Zoë Brouns authored a memo on how community navigators could accelerate the distribution of federal climate funding. It’s one of many examples of great environmental policy recommendations already in our library.

We are again on the cusp of a massive policy window, an opportunity to arm a new or second-term administration with new ideas. Leading up to the launch of Day One 2025, FAS will be highlighting stories of policy entrepreneurs on our website. We hope these stories will be a reminder that great policy can come from anywhere – be it a young scientist yet to truly begin their career, or a policy veteran who’s served in the White House.

Maybe, as you read about the passion, persistence and imagination exhibited by one or all of these individuals, you’ll be inspired to try your hand at policy entrepreneurship with a policy proposal to make this country, and the world, a better place.

This series of interviews spotlights scientists working across the country to implement the Department of Energy’s massive efforts to transition the country to clean energy, and improve equity and address climate injustice along the way. The Federation’s clean energy workforce report discusses the challenges and opportunities associated with ramping up this dynamic, in-demand workforce. These interviews have been edited for length and do not necessarily reflect the views of the DOE.

With a PhD in materials science, a postdoc position at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and a stint as a AAAS Fellow, Dr. Shawn Chen has had a range of roles in the research community. Now at DOE as a career civil service member, he seeks to combine his technical skills with his passion for public service – to build the foundation for the next generation of clean energy technologies. 

Marrying Public Service and Science

Chen’s interest in engineering and materials science started while he was getting his undergraduate degree at UC San Diego. He was chosen to join Dr. Shirley Meng’s research team and started studying how to build stronger, better, and longer lasting batteries. This experience encouraged him to pursue a PhD, and he went on to study how to produce polymer films and materials – and figure out how to make films that use less energy.

It’s important to him that all his research connects back to energy in some way. Dr. Chen grew up in countries where energy was front of mind for his communities. “I grew up in Taiwan and spent two years in Malawi, and you really understand how important energy is. In Taiwan there was a special focus on conserving energy as much as possible. In Malawi, there would be days you wouldn’t have power. Growing up, that was something that was always on the mind.”

But it wasn’t just science that sparked his interest. With family members who had served in the military and a college degree that was funded in part by grants, Dr. Chen has always felt pulled to give back. “I wouldn’t have my education if it weren’t for the support of the country. What better way to do something to pay it back than to join public service?” As a grad student at Northwestern, Dr. Chen balanced his degree work with service in the graduate student government, negotiating on behalf of graduate student workers for better healthcare and working conditions.

Federal Service

With that outlook, the federal government seemed like a natural fit for him. After finishing his PhD, Dr. Chen took a postdoctoral position at the National Institute for Standards and Technology, where he continued his work on polymer films. His first foray into federal service allowed him to conduct research key to energy issues: studying how polymeric films could be used as membranes for fuel cells – for batteries and other energy technology, as well as for water treatment.  

Looking for even more of a policy focus in his work, Dr. Chen applied to the AAAS Fellowship, during which he interviewed at several different agencies. But the office that most spoke to him was the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. “What really resonated with me was this mission to keep America at the forefront of science and discovery and innovation…the fundamentals of science.” He got the fellowship, and recently converted to a permanent employee. Now he helps forward that same mission by overseeing and executing the office’s research funding and supporting fellow scientists in making progress on new technologies. 

He credits the AAAS Fellowship for giving him the opportunity. “It opened a door for me…without the fellowship, it would be very challenging for someone early in my career to be where I am now. I got a front row seat to how [policy] works behind the scenes.”  

The importance of research and development to fighting climate change is under-appreciated, in Dr. Chen’s opinion. “It’s very important to have that foundation. If we don’t have the scientific know-how, how can we innovate? You can’t just be throwing darts at a wall and hope it sticks.”

Because of that, effective and responsible stewardship of DOE’s research funding is one of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences’s core mandates. Dr. Chen plays a key role: reading applications, assigning reviewers, and making sure that projects align with national clean energy goals. Many of these projects “really address some of the climate challenges that we’re facing,” Dr. Chen says. Overseeing these projects and awards is his proudest accomplishment so far. His office played a major role in funding 29 projects with 264 million dollars that study large scale energy storage centers – directly supporting the Long Duration Storage Earth Shot. “The applications were top notch, the reviewers were excellent – and I think these awards will really make a significant change in the decades to come. I’m proud to say I’m a part of that effort.” 

Building a Stronger Science Talent Pipeline 

It’s not just funding the research – Dr. Chen is helping to bring younger scientists into the fold. DOE’s RENEW program – or Reaching a New Energy Workforce focuses on providing funding opportunities to minority serving institutions and non-R1 research institutions, places that have historically been unrepresented in the Office of Science portfolios. The program’s focus is on training and mentorship. DOE staff spend weeks with participants to engage them and expose them to the research process at the agency. They can create pathways into careers – not only in federal service, but into basic science research.

“Creating that opportunity for people that might not have even heard about clean energy, engineering, or STEM fields is really important. It’s an important piece of building the next generation – not just the technologies, but the people that will do this research.” 

Science in the Community

Dr. Chen sees his role as a public servant as going beyond just his day job. He feels a responsibility, not only to serve, support the development of new technologies, and forward key scientific research – but to engage his community in conversation about the importance of DOE’s work. 

“A lot of the people I interact with [outside of my work] don’t have a lot of interactions with government employees or scientists. Just putting a face to the names that they hear can help change their view of those people and educate them – tell them that we’re passionate about climate and energy. It’s important to meet people, make a friend, and talk about these things.”

There can be a lot of misunderstandings and questions about clean energy projects and what their impacts will be on communities. Dr. Chen believes it’s necessary for long-term buy-in, to keep strengthening our science communication and outreach efforts. 

In both his personal and professional lives, Dr. Chen continues to be inspired to give back and make the world a better place for those that come after him. “I think it’s important to fight for the people in the next generation. If we can make it better for the people that come after us, then we’ve had some positive impact.”