"Informing Science Policy: the Role for Scientists and Engineers"
A Panel Discussion
Note: This meeting will be held at NEON Headquarters, instead of our usual location. Details below.
This month Brian Wee, Steve Aulenbach, and I are delighted to have representatives from law, government and science come together to discuss various aspects of science policy. We've asked them to consider questions like these:
- What does "science policy" mean to you? To your organization? What impact does it have?
- What are the roles in science policy and what impacts do they have? Who are the main players?
- How have you or your organization tried to impact science policy? What worked and what did not work? What did you learn?
- How does one prepare for a science policy discussion? Any do's and don'ts?
- Scientists and engineers are trained to think and communicate in certain ways. Should those same skills be applied to policy discussions?
- If someone wanted to move more heavily into science policy, how would you advise them? What career moves would be good? Any bad career moves?
Panelists
Peter Backlund
Director, NCAR External Relations and the Integrated Science Program
Director, Research Relations, NCAR
Dan Baker
Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences
Director, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
Alice Madden
Wirth Chair in Sustainable Development, UC Denver
Colorado House Representative (2001 - 2010), Majority Leader (2004 - 2008)
Climate Change Adviser, Deputy Chief of Staff for Gov. Ritter
Senior Fellow on Climate Change, Center for American Progress
Andy Schultheiss
District Director at Office of Congressman Jared Polis
Campaigns Director at League of Conservation Voters
Boulder City Council (2003 - 2007)
Logistics
This meeting is being hosted by NEON, Inc. It will be held at NEON Headquarters, 1685 38th Street #100, Boulder, CO.
4:00 - 5:15 Panel Discussion
5:15 - 6:00 Social
Beverages will be provided courtesy of NEON. Thank you Brian and NEON!
Very light snacks to be covered by donations.
Please join us for this interesting discussion!
The discussion will be available via Web Ex, info to follow.
Another BLAST! Many thanks to Anna and Dave for their willingness to share ideas with us this month.
Anna Milan, NOAA/NESDIS/NGDC, Metadata for the Archive: Transition to ISO, Approaches, Challenges, and Opportunities
Dave Fulker, President, OPeNDAP, Inc., A (Very) Rough Idea: Raster Binning and Masking Services (see attachment)
I'll sketch my idea for a new type of data query/response service built (perhaps for EarthCube) around a standardized space-time raster that has a dual function. Tentatively dubbed "Raster Binning & Masking Services" or RBinMasks, users would gain a (potentially standard) way to specify (irregular) space-time regions of interest and a (potentially standard) way to gain information about the space-time distributions of pertinent data, without -- or before -- retrieving actual values.
Come join us at the Boulder Outlook Hotel!
4:00 - 5:00 Presentations
5:00 - 6:00 Social