Science as an Institution

This past summer, I worked as an intern for the American Institute of Physics' FYI science policy newsletter. FYI is a small but extremely productive group of four reporters who write about funding, policy, and personell decisions in the world of government-funded physical sciences research. As an intern taking notes on everything from Congressional hearings to lobbyist events, writing blurbs, and occasionally writing full articles, I was lucky enough to have a front row seat to many of the political dynamics shaping American physics. Science policy is often inaccessible, sometimes intentionally so. But decisions made by Congress and government agencies deeply affect scientists, and they determine how our work impacts the broader world. In this presentation, I hope to shine a light on how funding and policy decisions are made, who they are made by, and who, ultimately, they are meant to benefit. I will discuss specific issues I reported on this past summer, from a proposal to privatize the International Space Station to concerns about Chinese scientific and technological competition to the movement for open science.