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Ogmius Newsletter

Ogmius 10TH
Anniversary issue

Ursula Rick

Ursula RickThe Center for Science and Technology Policy Research was instrumental in changing my career path. When I began graduate school, I planned to pursue a career as a scientist, but I began to realize that I wanted to be a bridge between science and society. Courses and research at the Center led me to a Congressional science fellowship in Washington, D.C. and now a career in energy policy.

The email advertising the Graduate Certificate in Science and Technology Policy at the Center arrived during the 3rd year of my Ph.D. After working for several years on the behavior of glaciers and ice sheets, I became interested in how science was used in the policy and politics of climate change, and the program at the Center piqued my interest. I began taking classes and decided I wanted to move deeper into the policy world after my degree. I did a postdoc with Roger Pielke, Jr. and Max Boykoff. We studied media coverage of sea level rise, the impetus for which came from my Ph.D. research on the contribution of melting ice to sea level and how both scientists and journalists portrayed it in the media.

I enjoy maintaining the connection to scientists and engineers while thinking about how technical solutions can be used to make good policy and improve our world.

- Ursula Rick

 

During this time I discovered the AAAS science and technology policy fellowships in Washington, D.C. and was selected to be the 2010/2011 AGI Congressional Fellow.

I worked for Senator [Mark] Udall of Colorado on energy and natural resource policy. In D.C., I learned what it meant to be a science policy practitioner and where and when scientific knowledge can enter the policymaking process. By the end of my fellowship, I knew I wanted to stay in the world of policy. I enjoy maintaining the connection to scientists and engineers while thinking about how technical solutions can be used to make good policy and improve our world.

I was enriched by my time at CSTPR and am grateful for the people I worked with there. Happy 10th Anniversary CSTPR.

Ursula Rick, Post Doc CSTPR 2009-10, Ph.D . ATOC 2008