Wow, I can’t believe it’s been an entire year since last May
when I was heading off to Mexico for the first time! I just got back to
Monterrey on Sunday (6 days ago) for my second field season for my PhD. I’ll
fill you in on that in a bit, but first there are a couple things I've been wanting to blog about but with prepping for Mexico, finishing classes, etc. just didn't get around to.
Thousands (up to 1 million in peak summer months) of Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) emerge from under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, TX. These bats are GREAT for controlling pests that harm some of our major agricultural crops, including corn, cotton, soybeans, and pecans.
After an exhilarating bat emergence!
Now as promised in an earlier post, I want to share my experience as an Ecological Society of America Graduate Student Policy Award winner in Washington, D.C.! As a GSPA recipient, I traveled to D.C. in late April to receive hands-on exposure to the interface between science and policy. We spent the first evening of this (also jam-packed) two-day experience representing ESA at the Coalition for National Science Funding reception, where agencies, universities, etc. showcase their research that is supported by federal funding. Usually “higher-up” members of ESA get to do this, but because the CNSF reception happened to fall on the dates of the GSPA trip we had the unique opportunity to participate. We manned a table for ESA and talked with visitors, many of whom were Congressional members or staff, about our research and the work of ESA. On our first full day, we got a crash-course in how federal science policy works, with guest speakers from the National Science Foundation, the Ecological Society of America, and others involved in the science policy arena. We also split into our groups to practice for the next day’s Biological and Ecological Sciences Coalition (BESC) Congressional Visit day, where we would be thrown into the ring (aka Senate and House offices) to discuss the importance of continued federal funding for the National Science Foundation. After some discussion about how to approach our meetings with members of Congress and their staff from our states (Georgia and Mississippi), we were as prepared as we could be for the real thing.
The following morning we gathered on the Hill dressed in our business attire, and proceeded to meet with a total of seven members from the House and Senate. Many of our meetings were with the staff of the members, but our group was lucky enough to get to meet with some of the members themselves. During our meetings we (four graduate students and our team leader) we were asking for federal support for the National Science Foundation for FY2017 at $8 billion. This may seem like a crazy amount of money, but when you consider that federally-funded basic science research has led to the creation of the internet, Google, and Doppler radar, the money we put into research now is an investment in our future. Given that we were meeting with members from quite conservative states, many of our visits ended with the sentiment that they support science and research but that our current national debt requires that we focus more on other issues. While our visits to these offices may not have elevated the issue of federal funding of scientific research to one of their top priorities, I have no doubt that our presence on the Hill and our “putting a face” to the benefits of federal support of science funding was a positive experience for all of us.
The following morning we gathered on the Hill dressed in our business attire, and proceeded to meet with a total of seven members from the House and Senate. Many of our meetings were with the staff of the members, but our group was lucky enough to get to meet with some of the members themselves. During our meetings we (four graduate students and our team leader) we were asking for federal support for the National Science Foundation for FY2017 at $8 billion. This may seem like a crazy amount of money, but when you consider that federally-funded basic science research has led to the creation of the internet, Google, and Doppler radar, the money we put into research now is an investment in our future. Given that we were meeting with members from quite conservative states, many of our visits ended with the sentiment that they support science and research but that our current national debt requires that we focus more on other issues. While our visits to these offices may not have elevated the issue of federal funding of scientific research to one of their top priorities, I have no doubt that our presence on the Hill and our “putting a face” to the benefits of federal support of science funding was a positive experience for all of us.
After a tiring (but amazing!) day of running between the
Senate and House buildings in our dressy clothes in the rain, we met up for a
final happy hour/dinner before everyone went their own ways. Looking back on
the experience a month later, I am immensely thankful to ESA for giving me the
opportunity to get a better look at what science policy work can look like and
how I can potentially fit this kind of work into my career, even if not in an
“official” capacity. I don’t know if I will go into science policy once I
finish my PhD, but I feel that I am better armed for contributing to policy
discussions no matter where I end up. So thanks ESA, and the other 2016 GSPA
recipients, for an amazing experience!
Stay tuned for more posts from Mexico!
The 2016 ESA Graduate Student Policy Award recipients on our "training day"
(photo courtesy of ESA)
The Georgia-Mississippi group on the Hill
The Georgia-Mississippi group meeting with Senator Wicker (R-Mississippi)
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