CSPO Conversations

Science is a human endeavor, often conducted by teams of researchers. The human interactions between team members can mean some projects flourish or exceed their goals while other studies flounder or crumble. In a world with limited resources to support complex or high-stakes scientific research, understanding effective team structures can inform science policy and research priority decisions. This panel will bring their experience from different scientific research sectors and ideas on how scientists can build productive teams and avoid dysfunctional collaborations.

As technology becomes more complex and pervasive in society, its potential impact on urban environments and citizens’ day-to-day lives grows. Ensuring that the publics have the opportunity to understand, respond to, and influence future directions related to innovation is therefore imperative for upholding a truly democratic society. In an effort to create a more inclusive, sustainable, and integrated public engagement and deliberation experiences, researchers at the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University (CNS-ASU) developed the Futurescape City Tours (FCTs).  Please join us for a photographic and experiential journey through the citizen’s eye and a conversation among participants, designers, facilitators, and scientists of the FCT in Washington DC.

It’s an issue that has been repeated in countless reports and news stories: the United States is facing a looming shortage of scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians—a STEM crisis, that is. It’s time for a reasoned, informed dialogue about STEM literacy in the United States, without the political hysterics and contrived logic. Join CSPO co-director Dan Sarewitz and Robert N. Charette, author of the recent IEEE Spectrum article, “The STEM Crisis Is a Myth,” for an in-depth look at this issue and the potential pitfalls and solutions surrounding it.

President Eisenhower’s address is mainly remembered for his warning of the perils of a “military-industrial complex.” Less widely known, but no less important was his caution, a few sentences later, about “the danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” This seminar explored the historical context and current relevance of Eisenhower’s worries about a “scientific-technological elite.” CSPO faculty members and authors Dan Sarewitz and G. Pascal Zachary spoke, along with author and journalist Daniel S. Greenberg and journalist and former science analyst for the GAO William Lanouette. The panel was moderated by Steve Lagerfeld, editor of The Wilson Quarterly.