Dr S T Lee Public Policy Lecture
Earning public trust in evidence informed policy: what I’ve learned from leading the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Professor Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study
Date: 17 October 2023, 5:30pm-7pm followed by drinks reception
Venue: St John’s Divinity School, Cambridge
Chair: Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge
Professor Alondra Nelson, former Acting Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), will deliver the next Dr Seng Tee Lee Lecture.
To build public trust in the use of science in policy making, scientists are increasingly required to engage with the social context and the social implications of their work. As scientists advising governments, we have an obligation to “show our working” to the public just as we would have to do in math class.
These are questions about the intersection of science and society. That was why I was proud to start in OSTP a cluster of work that took those two things as inextricably linked, and deeply important for the work of science and technology policy. I hope that one of the lessons learned by all of us is that you can’t have effective science, or technology, or innovation, without upstream dialogue with people about the use cases. That is part of the trust making.
Professor Alondra Nelson
Widely known for her research at the intersection of science, technology, and politics, Alondra Nelson holds the Harold F. Linder Chair in the School of Social Science. Past president of the Social Science Research Council, she was professor of sociology at Columbia University, and also served as the inaugural Dean of Social Science. As Dean, she led the first strategic planning process for the social sciences at Columbia, working with faculty to envision and set long-term research priorities. Nelson began her academic career on the faculty of Yale University, where she received the Poorvu Award for Interdisciplinary Teaching Excellence.
From 2021–23, she was deputy assistant to President Joe Biden, and acting director and principal deputy director for science and society of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Nelson was the first person to serve in the latter role, which brings social science expertise explicitly into the work of federal science and technology strategy and policy. Including Nelson in the list of Ten People Who Shaped Science in 2022, Nature said of her OSTP tenure, “this social scientist made strides for equity, integrity and open access.”
To read the full biography, please click here.
How to register
To register to attend this lecture, please sign up here.
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S T Lee Public Policy Lectures
The S T Lee Public Policy lectures were established in 2003 thanks to a benefaction from Seng Tee Lee, Singaporean business executive, philanthropist and Honarary Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. Each lecture considers aspects of scientific, medical or technological research and developments that are likely to have significant implications for public policy over the next decade.
