Ryan Coogan wrote to ESAL about participating in a nuclear engineering student delegation in Texas, where students met with politicians and nuclear industry stakeholders to discuss safety and security, environmental impacts, and politics.
Local governments make many STEM-related policy decisions ranging from implementing climate resilient building codes, to leveraging AI-assisted law enforcement technology, to protecting public health. Bringing a science-informed perspective to advocacy efforts can impact policy outcomes.
Ryan Coogan wrote to ESAL about participating in a nuclear engineering student delegation in Texas, where students met with politicians and nuclear industry stakeholders to discuss safety and security, environmental impacts, and politics.
In the second part of this month's "Postcard", Arti Garg describes a follow-up discussion she had with her city's economic development manager after offering public comments at a city council committee meeting. She wrote a one-page summary proposing that the city prioritize cleantech hardware in its development plan.
In this month’s “Postcard”, Arti Garg describes delivering public comments at a city council committee meeting.
In this month's "Stories from the Field", we talked to Thomas Beatty, an assistant research professor in astronomy at Pennsylvania State University who is skilled at charting distant worlds. He applies some of the same STEM principles to the more down-to-earth subject of gerrymandering, which has been the subject of recent court rulings and ongoing political debate.
In this month's "Postcard", Griff O’Neill, a physicist by training currently working as an engineer in the semiconductor industry in California, describes how he sat down for coffee with two city council members from his community.
As an innovator and "maker" at the nexus of the built environment, energy, and transportation sectors; John Sarter frequently needs to integrate first-of-their-kind electrical systems with other building technologies. To accomplish this, he uses new materials and construction techniques that exceed, and help to advance, existing codes and local regulations. Even in a forward-looking city like San Francisco, though, the development of a building like Sol Lux Alpha – the first multi-unit residential nanogrid project in the United States – wasn't easy.
Derek Stanford is a statistician and data scientist, aka an unusual candidate for the state legislature. But by the time he filed to run in 2010, he had spent a decade volunteering with advocacy groups and political campaigns and learning in depth about policy areas where he wanted to make a difference. He believes that government would benefit if more STEM professionals chose to get involved.
