#makingourcase
Mar 26-28th, 2023. AAAS CASE Workshop in DC
With sponsoring from UCLA’s Brain Research Institute, Graduate Programs in Bioscience, and the Garrick Institute for Risk Science, SPG members Natalie Gehred, Kayla Lim, Bineh Ndefru, and Lauren Wagner attended the 2023 AAAS CASE Workshop in DC. The CASE (Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering) workshop is an opportunity to learn from science policy and advocacy experts about the role of science in policymaking and the federal policy-making process. It empowers participants to become advocates for research.
On the 4-day trip, we joined students from across the country who share our passion for science-policy. We spent the days together learning from experts about science communication, advocacy at the federal level, the federal budgeting process and much more. On day one, we heard from Joanne Padrón Carney (AAAS Chief Government Relations Officer) and Toby Smith (Senior VP for Science Policy & Global Affairs at Association of American Universities) who introduced us to the history of Science Policy.
On day two, we learned from experts about the structure of congress and its processes. We learned about the federal budgeting process and had the opportunity to work in teams to simulate the process and negotiate different spending allocations when each team had different priorities. On this day we also heard from Dr. Sudip Parikh, the CEO of AAAS. He gave a really engaging talk about his experiences with science policy and communication across ideological divides. On this subject, he noted that “jargon is the enemy of communication”, a common theme in many conversations about communicating science to non-technical audiences. Another particularly memorable part of his talk was about the necessity of building and maintaining trust with people you work with in government. To quote him “you build trust in spoonfuls and lose it in buckets”.
On the third day, we learned more about congressional and committee structures and operations and heard from experts who work at federal agencies (e.g. NIH, NSF, DOE, NASA). We ended this day with preparations for talking with policymakers.
We got to put all of this into practice on day four, as we spoke to our senators and representatives on Capitol Hill about the need for funding science agencies that support our research. With the help of UC government relations, we were able to get meetings with the offices of Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA), Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Representative Ted Lieu (CA-36), and Representative Jimmy Gomez (CA-34). We got to talk about the research that we do and ask for their support increasing funding for science research, especially as the upcoming budget has yet to be approved and with the background of the recent CHIPS and Science Act. We also met with staff members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee and attended a great briefing on how the government can better assess chemical exposure and its impacts on public health by researchers at the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment.
Overall this was an amazing trip! It was peak of cherry blossom season and we got to meet many other PhD students who share our passion for science policy (shout out to our new friends at Berkeley!). We connected with other science policy groups and hope to create collaborations in the future. We are super grateful for the opportunity to go on this trip and learned so much about the different ways that we can use our skills as researchers and policy enthusiasts to connect with lawmakers and influence policy.
