Research Library

As his term progresses, President Trump will be faced with a large number of policy challenges, some of them requiring immediate science & technology expertise. In this Science Magazine article, the authors urge the president to consider the Office of Science & Technology Policy, the science advisor and the presidential S&T councils as vital resources that should be used early in the term to drive his policy agenda.

The authors rely on 40 in-depth interviews with male and female physicists at universities in China to determine why the country has so few women in physics — a discipline of science where there is extensive gender segregation.

Drawing on interviews with male scientists working at prestigious universities, the authors report on ways these men negotiate the tensions between cultural expectations for devotion to work and breadwinning, either compromising work commitments for more time with family or time at home in exchange for increased academic prestige.

Using national survey data the authors examine how the presence of religion in the workplace affects an individual’s perception of religious discrimination and how this effect varies by the religious tradition of the individual. Published by Review of Religious Research

This study of biologists and physicists in the UK found that a majority of the respondents disagree with evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins’ “celebrity scientist” outreach approach and believe his work misrepresents science and the scientific research process.

The director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) plays a central role in advising the president on the impact of science and technology on domestic and global affairs, and on federal funding of scientific research. This paper provides recommendations for the next president to consider when choosing a science advisor and establishing science and technology policy priorities. The project also offers guidance to the next science advisor for developing effective policy while serving in the White House. The recommendations are based on lessons learned from past presidential science advisors as well as feedback from more than 60 reviewers, including individuals who currently serve or have served the OSTP, the President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology, federal agencies, Congress or congressional staff, and nongovernmental organizations as well as policy scholars.

In this first-ever survey of biologists and physicists in eight regions around the world, the authors analyze the religiosity of scientists or their perceptions of the science-faith interface. The study is published in the Aug. 31, 2016, issue of Socius: Sociologic Research for a Dynamic World.

The authors examine how two science popularizers, Francis Collins and Richard Dawkins, influence perceptions regarding the boundaries between religion and science. Published by Public Understanding of Science.

Though consumers generally pay higher electricity prices in areas with capacity markets, those markets also serve as an insurance mechanism to incentivize capacity additions and reduce the probability of extreme events. Graduate fellow Raúl Bajo Buenestado analyzes the implications of capacity markets for consumers in liberalized energy sectors.

In physics, extensive collaborations, access to colleagues’ data and rigorous peer review make it extremely difficult for individual researchers to bend the rules. Furthermore, physics does not harbor the types of ethical minefields characteristic of the biosciences. No thorny questions arise pertaining to human or animal life, nor do physicists commonly grapple with the ethical haze of intellectual property when patents and money are at stake. Things seem to be black and white in physics. But are they?