Featured Update

On October 8 at 9:00 AM, join us for the next event in our series, where we’ll rethink how ideas shape understanding, behavior, and real-world change. Through a new vision of academic impact, David Guston will explore a typology of impact, the challenges of measuring it, and an “impact catechism” to guide researchers and program leaders in amplifying the reach of their work.

CSPO Team Updates

From the Director:

As leaves turn brown in a drought-stricken DC and Congress debates agency S&T budgets, the CSPO team is preparing for a busy fall of policy programs and project work.

Summer Highlights

Internships & Collaboration: We welcomed two summer interns: Andrew Maglio (Yale University), who developed technology policy case studies, and Edward Cariño (University of Virginia), who contributed to our Carbon Dioxide Removal technology assessment projects. We also collaborated with Prof. ShihHsin Chen (National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University) on her research into international diplomacy and “smart” healthcare devices.

Policy Conversations:
Scientific Oversight & Norms: A CSPO Conversation with the American Enterprise Institute examined frameworks for science in policy amid new directives on integrity and transparency.
Rethinking Science Diplomacy: A roundtable led by Prof. Chen explored how smart healthcare technologies can support innovation and partnerships across Pacific Island nations.

Deliberative Forums:: Led by Nicholas Weller, we hosted seven forums with 242 diverse participants across Arizona to discuss collaborative siting of nuclear waste facilities. We continue to share preliminary results through our website for this Department of Energy-funded project as we dig through data in preparation for our several virtual listening sessions with participants, partners, experts, and stakeholders throughout September and October.

National Engagement

Advisory Committees: Mahmud Farooque began serving on the Building Impactful Collaborative Platforms in the Land-Grant System Committee and the Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Standing Committee of the National Academies. He contributed to the consensus study, “Fulfilling the Public Mission of the Land-Grant System: Building Platforms for Collaboration and Impact,” published in August.

Training & Conferences: Our team led a workshop for 60 new AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellows and presented at the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) annual meeting, highlighting participatory technology assessment and our Public Interest Technology Community Innovation Fellowship.

Participatory Technology Assessment (pTA) Activities

Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) 2025 Annual Conference, September 3-6, Seattle, WA
In September, Amanda Borth, Emily Hostetler, and Mahmud Farooque presented in two sessions at the annual conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) in Seattle. The first session, Telling the Story of Participatory Technology Assessment, brought participants through the entirety of the pTA process in just 60 minutes through an immersive and interactive dialogue using materials and results from our Sloan Foundation-funded Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) public forum project. The second session introduced the Public Interest Technology Community Innovation Fellowship (PITCIF) program, outlining how aligning value propositions for target audiences can lead to impactful outcomes, even when plans are derailed due to a global pandemic and lack of funding.

Carbon Dioxide Removal Governance in the US and Canada

On October 21 and 22, Amanda Borth will lead four identical online meetings with national and international CDR experts and stakeholders from academia, government, non-government, private, and philanthropic sectors. These meetings will share and discuss the preliminary results from our public deliberation forums in Boston and Vancouver on CDR to inform deeper analysis, communication, and dissemination strategies.

Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal – First Workshop of the Series

On November 12 and 13, we will convene experts, stakeholders, and decision-makers in a workshop to identify community capacity gaps for responsible research and development of marine carbon dioxide removal technologies. Mara Karageozian will lead this NSF-funded workshop at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Conference Center in Washington. It is designed to inform a second workshop for developing a roadmap for collaborative action, scheduled to take place in early Spring.

Connect with us!

Future newsletters will provide updates on these and numerous other S&T policy-oriented projects underway at CSPO.

For more on CSPO’s programs and projects, visit to our website and connect with us on LinkedIn.