On Alumna Christine Chalk

A Road Less Traveled - a Career in Science Policy

I was not a typical Physics Major back in the Fall of 1996. For one thing I already had a degree - in Economics, for another I already had a job and nearly 10 years on most of my fellow students. I was very pleasantly surprised to find several other "adults", also working, also in the UMD Physics program. In fact, I married one of them but that is another story.

This article is about my employer, the U.S. Department of Energy and what I do for a living. I have worked for Energy since 1991 and I have always worked in what is now called the Office of Science in a group called Planning and Analysis. But none of that means anything to anyone outside of my building. With an annual budget of over $3 billion, my organization supports the lion share of U.S. research in High Energy Physics, Nuclear Physics, Magnetic Fusion, Heavy Element Chemistry, Nuclear Medicine and Catalysis. We also make unique contributions to Scientific Computing, Climate Change Research, Nanoscience, Civilian Applied Math, Genomics and Biomedical applications of our research. We provide Fermilab, CEBAF, RHIC, the National Synchrotron Light Source, dozens of other large-scale scientific user facilities and five National Laboratories.

What I do is science policy and program evaluation. Mainly I draft documents, make vugraphs, give speeches and attend meetings. But it really is much more interesting than that sounds. I have the honor of working with brilliant and dedicated scientists, constantly learning about new ideas and new directions in fields as varied as microbial genomics, nanoscience, applied math, and astro-particle physics. I have met more than a dozen Nobel Laureates and chatted with the likes of Millie Dresselhaus, Freeman Dyson, and Craig Venter.

My job connects to another sphere as well. I frequently interact with policy makers in the Administration and on Capital Hill. I have briefed the Secretary of Energy, participated in White House meetings and conferences, contributed to international negotiations for scientific collaborations, written strategic plans, and worked with Congressman on an array of science issues. These are, of course, highlights of nearly 12 years of Government service. Throughout, both the good days and the bad, I have the benefit of believing that what I do helps to advance science.

So what do I do? Two of the biggest challenges to science are communicating with the public and demonstrating results without deterring scientific progress. Most of my time is spent in these two areas. First, communication is important because so much of fundamental science is supported with public funds. Though the public overwhelmingly support investment in science they all too often don't understand the process or the research and miss out on the excitement and the magnitude of scientific achievements. The members of the public elected to Congress are particularly critical to the scientific process in that they allocate funding and legislate limitations and accountability criteria that impact research.

The scientific community may believe that an imbalance has grown between funding for the life sciences and funding for the physical sciences, or a thousand other disparities, but can they effectively communicate the implications of disparities to the public? Can they prove that funding disparities adversely impacts research progress or, perhaps more importantly during a recession and budget deficit, economic growth or domestic security?

"Results" and "Performance" are increasingly linked with communication and increasingly required from Federal research programs. The Government Performance and results Act of 1993 requires all Government agencies to more rigorously and regularly assess performance and demonstrate results. The Bush Administration and the National Academies of Science have embraced Excellence and Relevance. Though we all support those criteria they are not quite enough for agencies that are required to have annual targets and quarterly progress reports. For example, nearly everyone agrees that peer review assures excellence in research projects but no one knows how to turn it into a quantitative or "trendable" measure for a research program or how you demonstrate improved "efficiency" in a system built on volunteers.

Albert Einstein said "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." Armed with an understanding of Economics and Physics including the ways in which research is conducted (thanks in no small part to my experiences at the University of Maryland), what I really do is to try to lighten the load on researchers by steering the Office of Science programs toward counting what counts and effectively communicating why it counts and to whom. There are days when I feel like a super hero and days when I feel like Sisyphus but I never doubt that the Science is worth the effort or that I am part of that effort.