RSSMeet the Obama technology team
By Angela Gunn | Published April 29, 2009, 4:46 AM
The twenty people named to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) bring together hundreds of years of research, four MacArthur grants, the most interesting guy at Microsoft, the most interesting grownup at Google, experts on geriatric medicine and evolutionary biology and the Stock Exchange and climate change, and three Nobel laureates. And some astronomers, because those guys have all the fun.
PCAST, founded in 1990, exists to advise the President and Vice President in matters of science, technology, and innovation. President Obama announced the lineup this week at the National Academy of Sciences. Brief biographies of all twenty are available on PCAST's site, but a few groupings are worth noting here:
Across the board: Among the disciplines pursued by our panel: medicine, astrophysics, energy, biology, economy, nanotech, chemistry, computer science, aerospace, transportation, genetics, geology, and biochemistry, materials science, mathematics, bioinformatics, and bioethics. Most represented: environmental studies, physics and engineering. be advised, though, that most of the panel members have undertaken significant research in multiple disciplines -- in other words, expect anything of anyone at any time.
Read all about it: Our panelists have published, of course, and copiously. It's not all academic papers, either. Christine Cassel's A Practical Guide to Aging (1997) was favorably reviewed by The New York Times as "a forthright advice book." William Press is the author of the ongoing Numerical Recipes series of books on computer programming.
Not just Ivy: Harvard and MIT are the schools most closely associated with our panel, but Caltech, Berkeley and Boston College (among many others) contributed their part.
Not their first time at the rodeo: Several appointees have served in other administrations. Rosina Bierbaum was Associate Director for Environment for the Office of Science and Technology Policy for President Clinton, and acting director of the agency in 2000-2001. Christopher Chyba was a member of the White House staff from 1993 to 1995, at the National Security Council and the Office and Science and Technology Policy. Mario Molina served on PCAST specifically during both Clinton terms. Ernest J. Moniz joined the Clinton administration in 1995 as Associate Director for Science in the White House Office Of Science and technology Policy and two years later became the Undersecretary of the Department of Energy, serving through the end of that administration. Maxine Savitz also served at the Department of Energy as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Conservation under two administrations -- Carter and Reagan.
Secure in their knowledge: Not one but two of our panelists double-major (so to speak) in astrophysics and security. William Press is a professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin; he's also served as deputy labs director for science and technology at Los Alamos and taught astronomy and physics at Harvard. Christopher Chyba teaches astrophysical sciences and international affairs at Princeton; his scientific research focuses on solar-system exploration, while his security work looks at nuclear and biological weapons. He's a member of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences.
First!: Among our panel's achievements: S. James Gates wrote the first doctoral thesis at MIT to tangle with supersymmetry. Mario Molina is the first Nobel laureate born in Mexico -- and he won the award for co-leading the first research team to figure out the link between chlorofluorocarbons and ozone depletion. Barbara Schaal is the first female vice president of the National Academy of Sciences. Ahmed Zewail is the first Linus Pauling Chair in Chemical Physics at Caltech and is considered by some the father of femtochemistry.
Shirley Ann Jackson's CV is mighty enough to merit its own paragraph. She was the first African American woman to earn an MIT doctorate (elementary particle physics), one of the first two African American women to earn a physics doctorate in the US, the first African American and the first woman to become commissioner of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the first African American woman to lead a national research university (she's president of Rensselaer Polytechnic), the first African American woman elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and the first to receive the Vannevar Bush award, given by the National Science Board for "a lifetime of achievements in scientific research, education, and senior statesman-like contributions to public policy."
A Nobel cause: Know your laureates! Ahmed Zewail (chemistry, 1999) teaches at Caltech and has lent his help to peace efforts in the Middle East. Mario Molina (chemistry, 1995) teaches at UCSD and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and directs the Mario Molina Center for Energy and Environment in Mexico City. And Harold Varmus (medicine or physiology, 1989) is CEO and president of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, not to mention co-chair (with John Holdren) of PCAST itself.
No Cupertino: On the tech-industry front, Craig Mundie steps in from Microsoft Research while Eric Schmidt represents for Google. One feels as if there's someone missing... some other company that talks a lot about innovation... hmm, it'll come to me. (Be it noted, by the way, that Mssrs. Mundie and Schmidt each have biographies of just three lines on the PCAST site -- a nice touch of humility for two tech guys stepping onto a bigger stage.)
in other words, expect anything of anyone at any time.
The only thing I expect from this motley crew is a steady stream of new excuses for Obama to finish destroying America. This is simply a scientific counterpart to the rubber-stamping Democrat politburo that congress has become. Let me lay out the first year of "innovations" from this group of "experts": more phony carbon taxes to line Al Gore's pockets; a massive secret police program to keep tabs on soldiers, libertarians and other patriots; complete socialization of our medical and financial systems, and pretty much whatever atrocities the leftists tell them to justify. God help any of these learned folks who dare to protest their status as window dressing - they'll find themselves exiled to a watch list along with the rest of us. Honestly, I might as well stop reading the news...we're on a road with no turns at this point.
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|Psycros...
It is scary that there are people that think like you do and are somehow proud to say it publically.
I guess every group has their extremist minded fringe. It is both sad and ironic that your psychosis is equivalent to Osama bin Laden. You even have the nerve to invoke God in your myopic rant. Scary indeed…
Let's put some reality in here, for fun...
>>more phony carbon taxes to line Al Gore's pockets
Ok, I'm not a big carbon tax supporter myself, as it is not a cut and dry solution. However, putting the CO2 and pollution regulatory caps back in place that Bush ripped out (that Nixon put in place) would be nice. I guess Nixon was a crazy tree hugging liberal uh?
Then to jump the tracks to 'emphasize' your point, you go off the deep end by suggesting Al Gore would make money off of a Carbon Tax. Brilliant deduction, but factual the opposite of reality even in 'side-effect' arguments of Gore’s involvement.
1) Al Gore doesn't get a percentage of the Government's tax money. (Yes obvious, but with you, not so sure something this simple is easily understood.)
2) If there were CO2 reductions via a Tax or Regulatory Caps, Al Gore wouldn't have much to say anymore and there wouldn't be much of a need for his 'presentations' or 'lecture' bringing awareness to CO2 dangers. (BTW He usually does them for free anyway.)
>>a massive secret police program to keep tabs on soldiers
Wow, a headline straight from Fox News that was debunked several times now. Try another TV Station once in a while, please?
Oddly, people like you that got up in arms about 'monitoring' have no problem that ATT was dropping a copy of all communications, including voice and data at their main fiber link to government archives at the request of the Bush Administration. Everything you said on a phone or computer for several years is STILL archived by the government because of this.
There were also admitted 'focused' wiretapping and 'monitoring' of journalists and ALL military communications. For example, go do a Google on the story about the NSA employee that quit over a personal conversation with a military person and their spouse that was a bit 'private' that was being emailed and shared within the NSA as 'fun'.
Why didn't you get up in arms about this when Bush was doing it? And more importantly, why are you up in arms about a 'story' that is 'false'?
>>complete socialization of our medical and financial systems
Strange it was Bush that socialized the banking industry back in September, where were you when he was requesting and buying the US people into Citibank and others. (That was socialism, and why weren't you up in arms preaching the doom that Bush was causing with his leftist agenda?)
>>socialized medicine
Wow, that would be horrible; it would be like we weren't a 3rd world country. Strange that the same people that like funding for the military (a socialistic defense program BTW), have a problem with keeping people healthy.
So you are willing to buy into socialism for defense to keep American's safe, but you aren't willing to buy into it to keep them safe from sickness and dying from illness? Let alone how irrational this is, you probably are not a very nice person.
Most national health programs are not very socialistic, with the UK having one of the most 'defined socialized' version of national health care. I guess you must really hate England and their socialistic ways?
(BTW The way most national health care programs work is based on capitalism. In most countries, it is businesses that augment their employee's salaries, a lot like you find in the US, but in a regulated form that doesn't prevent Insurers from denying coverage for bull crap.
And most countries have very different forms of this from Taiwan to France to Canada to Belgium, they all have different systems, just like the US will have.
The other aspect to this is the massive lack of regulation in the insurance industry in the US when it comes to health care. If you want to know why your trip to the ER cost $4,000 for an hour, look no further than the insurance industry. If the insurance industry in America was even regulated, as it should be, costs would be reduced at least 20-30%.
So why do you want your insurance company making money off your sickness, and also telling you what treatment you can have and what doctor you can see.
It is worse than full socialism, as a non-regulated corporate interest has control over your health. Notice next time you need and MRI -even in the ER- and the doctor has to fax the insurance company to get approval. -And that is even assuming you still have insurance, as the uninsured number of people in the US has sky rocketed in the past few years.
The evils of 'socialized medicine' is the boogey man that grownups believe in and tell each other to keep the insurance companies rich, and the pharmaceutical industry making record profits, even in a time when we are close to a full depression.
I truly hope you don’t have to be subjected to a harsh reality about the US health care system by getting a major illness and having your insurance company drop you and deny coverage, leaving you to die.
Sadly, I have watched this happen to a family member recently, as well as seen another family member have their employer move them to 31 hrs a week and remove their health benefits, and less than six months later get a blood clot (job related even – airline industry), and not only be off work and lose pay, but have the hospital refuse to admit them cause they had no insurance, leaving only the ER to treat them, and once the ER wrote the prescriptions, they had no further obligation legally, and literally wheeled them to the door, knowing that they could not afford the $150 daily shots of Lovenox that they would die without getting. –And the family member made $500 too much the previous year (when they were full time) for the drug company that makes Lovenox to help with the costs.
Does that sound like the America you want to be proud of? Do you take delight in going down to the hospital and watching people denied care and sent home to die? And unlike what the conservative talking points say, this happens every day to thousands of people in the richest country in the world.
BTW, Go look up socialism, and when Obama starts issuing your clothes, food, and takes control of your house and all other property, then you can complain about how much of a socialist he is. Sadly most people that throw the word around don’t have a freaking clue what it means, and to the extent it does apply.
Oh, and why you are waiting for that day of ‘socialism’, don’t pay your property taxes on your house for one year, and see who really owns it, when the local government sells it for back taxes and puts you on the street…
(Again people have no idea of what socialist levels they currently live in, and have for over a century, and think they are ‘good’ even though most of the daily accepted socialist practices by state and local governments are the most insidious.)
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|Anthony, thanks -- an excellent comment.
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|"made $500 too much...for the company to help with the cost"
...and this is the problem. No, not the company, but the dependency on "help" that *forces* people to *want* to earn less.
Hey, when you can get housing, food, and medicine for free, why bother becoming a productive member of society? If you make just a bit too much to get the "help"? Work fewer hours...get fired...whatever works.
While I understand that there are *many* people in the country with legitimate need, it is still *far* too easy live off the system than to rise above it.
Score: 2
|science and technology are never absolute.
perhaps, they should include the metaphysical phenomenons that occur but cannot be quantified, like esp-ers, x-file expert's and psychic's?
the proof is in the pudding because bill clintons voodoo witch doctor (bouncing around without her grass top during the incantation) proved useful on senator splinter
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ps: it would be great for president obama to get us the truth about Area 51.
is there a space ship there or not? are there anti gravity experiments going on there?
are we cloning alien beings and actually designing dooms day devices, like immortal super virus's?
Score: -1
|...Like speculation, debate and the increasing discordance over string theory and the latest developments in TOE are of use to this administration.
But like many universities where many of these folks ostensibly hang out, and who use their names to attract would be students who subsequently find that the closest they ever get to seeing these folks is to meet some graduate TA who is being used as slave labor performing the actual research for some forthcoming book that will have a new edition released each year with a new preface as it serves to render the previous volume worthless through applied planned obsolescence in the world of academic publishing...
But then, the real value is in the marketing brochure, isn't it?
Anyone for a flyover of NYC and the Statue of Liberty? Now that will make a nice brochure cover with these folks names listed inside in the next iteration of fund raising as if that lends some credence and substantiation to the assertions of those such as Napalitano who as spokespeople for this administration maintain the there is nothing illegal about illegal aliens - well, except for the fact that federal law maintains that they are illegal.
And maybe this gaggle of geniuses can ascertain exactly how the flyover was authorized, since no one amongst the White House staff claims to have ANY knowledge of such an act.
...Or how the majority stakeholder private investors in Chrysler and GM end up the minority owners second to the governance of the federal government and the United Auto Workers...
Talk about mysteries of the universe...
Score: -12
|"On the tech-industry front, Craig Mundie steps in from Microsoft Research while Eric s*** represents for Google. One feels as if there's someone missing..."
I know you're implying Apple is missing, but if you compare the three, Apple simply doesn't fit. MSFT produces software and and operating systems used by the majority of the world, and Google is the search engine/information broker used by the majority of the world.
Apple is #1 in what, iPod/PMPs? Doesn't really strike me as being relevant to Government Tech issues...
(Though I suppose making use of Apple's PR department wouldn't hurt)
Score: -11
|interesting....
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|ONE feels. Not Angela feels. :-) What Angela felt upon noticing the lack of representation from that quarter was mirth followed by a sweet smug glow, thinking of a blog post she read a few months back insisting that S. Jobs was actually taking time off 'cause he was about to be named Obama's CTO. Whatever, dude.
Seriously, agreed that Apple's not in the same league research-wise. Though this isn't merely government-tech stuff (note that it's Mundie, not Ballmer -- research not business -- and between you and me the name I *really* missed on this list was Jim Gray, who'd have been a marvelous addition). This is a real think-tank crew here, big visions, regaining America's lead in the sciences, etc. I'd compare it to the Manhattan Project, but in a way I'd say this panel's task, as I understand it, is greater and certainly more diffuse. We once led the world in science and innovation; our future depends on doing so again. We lost much ground in the early years of this century. We must regain it.
Meanwhile, be advised that we do not discuss Apple's PR department in polite company. (Fun fact; They hate the tech press. Any tech journalist can tell you horror stories; if you're curious, Valleywag's Owen Thomas -- Google him, totally worth it -- has some scorchers.)
Score: -12
|Heh...thanks for the suggestion. That was fun.
Evil genius, indeed. ;)
Score: -11
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