AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowship Info Session

The AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowship is a long-standing program that brings scientists to the DMV for 1 - 3 years of service in a variety of roles throughout the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the federal government. Our brief stints as a AAAS Policy Fellow introduced us to many of the ways in which scientists contribute to government and policy, gave us an in-depth look at the processes of a small part of a massive federal agency, and led to collaborations and friendships with some amazing scientists pursuing careers in government and policy. In this informal talk, we will share our experiences with the application process and in the fellowship, an overview of what we learned and gained from the program, and what limited advice we can offer to anyone interested in the fellowship.

Wynn Meyer is an assistant professor of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University, where she is starting a lab to research genomic changes associated with dietary variation in mammals, and teaches Personal Genomics and Biostatistics. Her somewhat meandering career path has included jobs with a Red Cross genetic testing lab, an anti-hunger non-profit, research with species ranging from yeast to flies to lemurs to manatees, and most recently a AAAS policy fellowship at the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy. In this role she developed the NIH DATA Scholars Program, co-chaired a panel on artificial intelligence (AI) and healthcare for the AAAS Human Impacts of AI symposium, and facilitated connections between NIH and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in data science. Wynn loves R and its wide range of applications but is still learning how to use the tidyverse.

Sam Tyner is a data scientist at Tritura, a technology services company that specializes in legal services. Sam earned her PhD in Statistics from Iowa State University in 2017. After a brief postdoc stint, Sam served as the first AAAS STPF fellow at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, where she worked in the Office of Survey Methods Research. In her role as a fellow, she worked on machine learning and data visualization projects, including Natural Language Processing problems and developing shiny apps for internal BLS use. Her other interests include network analysis and effective communication of statistics.

Dr. Amanda Price is an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow and began her detail in the Child Development and Behavior Branch in the NICHD in August 2019, where she manages the Cognitive Development, Behavioral Neuroscience, and Psychobiology Program. Before that, she earned a Ph.D. in Human Genetics from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development in Baltimore, MD. Her work focused on measuring epigenomic and transcriptomic changes that occur during human brain development in cells isolated from postmortem brain tissue to better understand the relevant cell types and potential timing of action of genetic risk for schizophrenia, an adult-onset psychiatric disease thought to arise from perturbed developmental processes in early life.

https://www.aaas.org/programs/science-technology-policy-fellowships