SWE - Spring 2009 - (Page 26)

The Science and Technology Fellowship Program The AAAS scientific and technology fellowship program offers scientists and engineers an opportunity to learn about the policymaking process by participating in it. Anyone with a master’s degree in any field of engineering with a minimum of three years post-graduate professional experience (not including further academic studies) may apply for the association’s Science & Technology Policy Fellowship. The Global Stewardship Fellowship requires an engineering master’s degree and six years of post-graduate professional experience. Scientists in the biological, physical, health/medical, or social sciences are required to have a terminal scientific degree (e.g., Ph.D., Sc.D., D.V.M., M.D., etc.) to apply for an AAAS fellowship. In the year immediately following their fellowships, 40 to 50 percent of the fellows continue working in the policy realm; 20 to 25 percent return to the sector in which they worked previously; and another 20 to 25 percent use the experience as a stepping stone to a new opportunity, according to AAAS. The yearly deadline for an AAAS fellowship application, which includes three letters of recommendation, is Dec. 15. Applications in 2009 are being accepted from early September to Dec. 15 for the fellowship class that begins in September 2010. Selection interviews take place in mid-March, with followup placement interviews in April. The fellowships are 12-month learning experiences beginning each Sept. 1 and ending on Aug. 31. mental engineering program. Layne went on to design waste-treatment systems for Bechtel Corp. and, after earning her master’s, worked as a consultant on environmental regulations; municipal water and wastewater treatment plant design; and hazardous waste management, investigation, and cleanup. During the fellowship, she dealt with issues ranging from wastewater treatment in the Florida Keys, the Clean Water Act reauthorization, and hearings on Superfund reauthorization. “I did many things that were similar to my work as an engineering consultant: I gathered information, synthesized it into brief reports, talked to people on the phone, and made recommendations to the senator,” she said. Layne also appreciated being able to attend meetings and hearings with prominent people such as prominent biologist, paleontologist, and science historian (now deceased) Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D., and Nobel Prize-winning scientist Harold E. Varmus. Layne leveraged contacts she made during the fellowship to start working for greater diversity in engineering. After the fellowship, she spent two years as director of a program to increase diversity in the engineering work force at the National Academy of Engineering in Washington, D.C. “The network of fellows come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and it is a very powerful network,” she said. Jaclyn Spear, F. SWE, also served as national president of the Society (1994-95) prior to her fellowship. She was finishing her year-long term as president, an experience that gave her a “bigger SWE Past President Jaclyn Spear worked for the House International Relations Committee during her fellowship. picture” view of engineering and inspired an interest in policy, when she decided to apply for the fellowship through her technical society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE-USA). “I was restless,” said Spear, who holds a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from Cornell and a M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh. She worked for the House International Relations Committee during her 1997 fellowship. Spear is currently a program manager at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., home to a former bomb-making plant that is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy and operated by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions. She previously worked in the commercial nuclear division at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, so she looked for a fellowship position that would include energy and environmental issues. She ended up learning about climate issues and global warming because the Kyoto Protocol was signed during her fellowship. Referring to the learning curve that was part of her experience, Spear noted that she sometimes found herself, “writing letters to constituents about things I [previously] knew nothing about,” as she put it. She learned to communicate more efficiently, and developed a deep respect for policymaking. “A lot of us engineers are very analytical. But things work at a very fast pace there. If you cannot explain an issue in the course of one ride in an elevator, you’re sunk,” she said. “Members of Congress get flooded with so much information, you have to keep things concise.” Spear encourages anyone interested in a fellowship to make sure to join the association sponsoring the fellowship. “It’s a very good window into the process of government. It’s a tremendous opportunity to see your government at work, or in many cases, not work,” she said. She also learned about the appropriations process, a skill that informs her in her current work, and was impressed with the personalities on Capitol Hill. She saw Madeleine Albright testify before a congressional committee, and heard talks by former head of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Casper “Cap” Weinberger. Spear advises would-be fellows to “pick an area you know nothing about and want to learn, or something you want to learn more about” to get the most out of the experience. Andrea Dietrich, Ph.D., professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering, did a year-long fellowship at the National Science Foundation starting in Andrea Dietrich, Ph.D., 2001. She appreciated the advises would-be fellows networking opportunities to have an open mind. 26 SWE SPRING 2009

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of SWE - Spring 2009

SWE - Spring 2009 Heritage Club Contents President's Note View from the Executive Suite Editor’s Page Honoring Women’s History Public Policy Update First Lady: The “Second-Hardest Job in America” Bringing Science and Engineering into Public Policy At the Intersection of Engineering and Public Policy From Research to Reality Coffee Table Dialogues Membership Information & Calendar A&B Winning Essays from the Lava Lounge Engineering World: Issues • Events • Technology • People Point of View: Your Role in Public Policy Career Toolbox: Communicating with Congress; Finding Your Voice Corporate Partnership Council Media Shelf: Women’s History Opportunity Index SWE Scrapbook: Dressed for Success

SWE - Spring 2009

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