Working in science policy

From 2017 to 2019, I worked as a Science Policy Fellow at the Institute for Defense Analyses Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI), a federally-funded research and development center in Washington, DC. STPI receives funding from the NSF to conduct research and projects for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). STPI also contracts with government agencies across the Executive Branch to provide science and technology policy analysis. Things I worked on that are publicly available can be read here. Some highlights from my work there include:

  • Reviews of U.S. Government policy on life sciences dual use research of concern (DURC) and of Federally-funded infectious disease ‘-omics’ databases
  • Work supporting the White House Initiative on the “Bioeconomy”, including a case study of ownership, data sharing, and privacy issues regarding personal genomic data
  • A congressionally mandated evaluation of NASA’s roadmap for a human mission to Mars by 2033
  • Aggregation of responses to a Request for Information RFI from the NSF regarding the National Space Weather Plan and Strategy
  • A report on the economic, policy, and technical feasibility of deploying supersonic commercial aircraft
  • An examination of assessment capabilities across the Federal government, including case studies of evaluation in offices within the Department of Defense, Department of Labor, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and USAID
  • A review of planetary protection policies and approaches, as well as a summary of U.S. and international laws, regulations, policies and practices governing planetary protection
  • Early research on trends in the on-orbit servicing, assembly, and manufacturing of space technologies, including a White House-convened summit
  • A review of laws and regulations governing exports of space technologies and how they are implemented, including International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and Export Administration Regulations (EAR)
  • An analysis of space situational awareness (SSA) technologies and space traffic management (STM) policies across 18 countries