by Chris Yarosh
PSPG tries to
hold as many events as limited time and funding permit, but we cannot bring in enough
speakers to cover the range of science policy careers out there. Luckily, other
groups at Penn hold fantastic events, too, and this week’s Biomedical Postdoc
Program Career Workshop was no exception. While all of the speakers provided great
insights into their fields, this recap focuses on Dr. Sarah Rhodes, a Health
Science Policy Analyst in the Office of Science Policy (OSP) at the National
Institutes of Health (NIH).
First, some
background: Sarah earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Cardiff University in
the U.K., and served as a postdoc there before moving across the pond and
joining a lab at the NIH. To test the policy waters, Sarah took advantage of
NIH’s intramural detail program,
which allows scientists to do temporary stints in administrative offices. For
her detail, Sarah worked as a Policy Analyst in the Office
of Autism Research Coordination (OARC) at the National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH). That experience convinced her to pursue policy full time. Following
some immigration-related delays, Sarah joined OARC as a contractor and later
became a permanent NIH employee.
After outlining
her career path, Sarah provided an overview of how science policy works in the
U.S. federal government, breaking the field broadly into three categories:
policy for science, science for policy, and science diplomacy. According
to Sarah (and as originally promulgated by Dr. Diane Hannemann, another one of this
event’s panelists), the focus of different agencies roughly breaks down as
follows:
This makes a
lot of sense. Funding agencies like NIH and NSF are mostly concerned with how
science is done, Congress is concerned with general policymaking, and the
regulatory agencies both conduct research and regulate activities under their
purview. Even so, Sarah did note that all these agencies do a bit of each type
of policy (e.g. science diplomacy at NIH Fogarty International
Center). In addition, different components of each agency have different
roles. For example, individual Institutes focus more on analyzing policy for
their core mission (aging at NIA, cancer at NCI, etc.), while the OSP makes
policies that influence all corners of the NIH.
Sarah then described
her personal duties at OSP’s Office of
Scientific Management and Reporting (OSMR):
- Coordinating NIH’s response to a directive from the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy related to scientific collections (think preserved specimens and the like)
- Managing the placement of AAAS S&T Fellows at NIH
- Supporting the Scientific Management Review Board, which advises the NIH Director
- Preparing for NIH’s appropriations hearings and responding to Congressional follow-ups
- “Whatever fires needs to be put out”
If this sounds
like the kind of job for you, Sarah recommends building a professional network
and developing your communication skills ASAP (perhaps by blogging!?).
This sentiment was shared by all of the panelists, and it echoes advice from
our previous speakers. Sarah also strongly recommends volunteering for
university or professional society committees. These bodies work as
deliberative teams and are therefore good preparation for the style of
government work.
For more
information, check out the OSP’s website
and blog. If you’re
interested in any of the other speakers from this panel, I refer you to the Biomedical Postdoc Program.