A Tripartite PCAST
December 20th, 2008Posted by: admin
Buried in this week’s address by President-elect Obama, was the announcement of not one, not two, but three co-chairs of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST). Joining Dr. Holdren – the science adviser appointment, as co-chairs of PCAST will be Dr. Harold Varmus, former Director of the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Eric Lander, a genomic scientists with the Whitehead Institute at MIT. These selections are noted breaks from the past two administrations, which selected industry representatives to co-chair PCAST with the OSTP Director.
Their marching orders would mark a bit of a departure for PCAST. From the address:
“Together, [Holdren, Varmus, and Lander] will work to remake PCAST into a vigorous external advisory council that will shape my thinking on the scientific aspects of my policy priorities.”
Should this hold true, it would be a good idea to pay more attention to the meetings and members of PCAST. The current roster is available online.
December 20th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
I think we need to ask “advisors on science and technology”- which sciences and technologies are included in this advisory group, and which are left out.
Folks can check my math but I counted 7 women and 35 total members including the cochairs.. that would be a 20%. Not so good given this is 2009.
A thought experiment might be “if the PCAST had a different range of scientists (biologists and social) represented, might their gender ratio be different? ”
And “who determines what kinds of scientists and technologists are represented? By what implicit or explicit criteria? ”
Many many disciplines related to a variety of polices are missing from this group.. does this bother anyone besides me?