From the Executive Office

Thanks to the AAS Council’s decision to augment the policy function in the Executive Office, we are now two people strong! I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the fifth John Bahcall Public Policy Fellow: Dr. Joshua (Josh) Shiode.

Josh joined us in late August and has been quickly climbing a steep learning curve ever since. He comes to Washington by way of Boston University, for his undergraduate studies, and the University of California, Berkeley, where he recently finished his Ph.D. studying the unstable evolution of massive stars with Prof. Eliot Quataert.

As he detailed in his initial blog post at the AAS Policy blog (a communication space he hopes to populate heavily during his tenure), Josh began his journey toward a non-academic career over the last few years of his graduate work. At Berkeley he explored his interests in teaching and communicating science to a broad audience and worked alongside many of his peers to try to improve the undergraduate and graduate experiences at the university. Josh worked on what he now knows to call stakeholder engagement (among other things) as a program coordinator for the Berkeley Compass Project, and he developed his writing skills for broad audiences as an author and editor for The Berkeley Science Review. He is excited to bring his passion for communicating science effectively to the AAS Executive Office.

Much of our advocacy work is by its very nature reactive; nevertheless, Josh plans to devote some proactive energy toward as many avenues as possible during his fellowship. In particular, he hopes to convey the importance and complexity of science policy to the astronomical community, engage those interested in advocacy, and work to broaden graduate education in the astronomical sciences to include the ever more diverse set of rewarding career paths that graduates seek.

Given the general dysfunction in Washington these days, we will certainly benefit from Josh’s energy and enthusiasm. He hopes to share his developing knowledge of the workings of science policy at the AAS Policy blog. He and I encourage you to send him suggestions for topics and provide feedback on his posts; the blog is fully intended to be a community resource. Josh also tweets from events around DC on a regular basis, so if that’s your cup of tea, please follow him @AAS_Policy.

And if you’re going to be at the 223rd AAS meeting in DC in a couple of weeks, please stop by the AAS booth in the exhibit hall to chat with Josh and/or me.