Wisconsin Public Television University Place  Cora Marrett Science, Technology and Public Policy  October 5, 2012 UP782   cc >> As fellow Badgers, we're really proud that her success stems in part from earning her master's and PhD here in Sociology at UW-Madison. She was a UW-Madison faculty member from 1974 to 1997 with appointments in the Departments of Sociology and Afro-American Studies. From 1988 to 1991, she was associate chair of the Department of Sociology, and from 2001 to 2007, Cora served as Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs for the University of Wisconsin System. I think that's particularly appropriate to point out right now because I work for both UW Extension and UW Madison. Wisconsin Public Television is taping this and UW Extension is the home of Wisconsin Public Television. So as Cora's got a lot of experience with the whole state of Wisconsin and the broadest definition of the Wisconsin Idea. Her distinguished career has elevated her to the leadership role that she holds today at the National Science Foundation. NSF annually awards $7 billion to institutions, including UW-Madison, to support basic research in all fields of science, engineering, mathematics, computer science, and the social science. It's a delight to read Cora's story in her own words and hear how UW-Madison-- Rule number one: don't put the brochure next to your microphone. To hear how Cora, in her own words, how UW Madison has helped to inspire her life and her life's work. 

And we, in turn, are inspired and proud to know her as a fellow graduate, respected scholar, and a powerful advocate for students in this university. Cora's recognized for the innovations in outreach she brings to NSF, and she reminds us that NSF is about people who have a commitment to excellence and who want to help address the curiosity about the world around us. I had the great pleasure to get to write speeches for Dr. Marrett when I was at NSF. It's a great joy to be able to claim her as a fellow Badger, as a fellow person from Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin System. If there is any UW alum who has surpassed Cora, I'm not sure who that would be. Certainly, she's unsurpassed in collegiality and congeniality. She's a splendid person and a delight to be able to introduce to you here at UW Madison today. Please join me in welcoming Cora Marrett to UW-Madison. [APPLAUSE]  >> Thank you very much, Tom. >> Your mic is not on. 

 >> Tom cannot be held responsible for this talk, for he has left the National Science Foundation. So I had to wing it on my own. [LAUGHTER] The other thing about it is, as Tom knows, typically the speech writers begin by suggesting you say thank you for that excellent introduction. Sometimes they're not all that excellent. In this case, it would have been appropriate, if somebody else had written this, for me to say, but I'm not going to say that. Tom knows how much I appreciate what he did say and what he's continued to do for the campus, what he did for the National Science Foundation. Now, you see the title of the talk, and I'm going to try to make it as informal as possible. But let me start by noting that the making of policies for science and engineering, the making of these policies is in the nation's interest. For the engagement of citizens, engagement matters in the shaping of policies. Given that the consequences of potential advances in science and engineering, there are potential advances that -- the benefit of the population. 

So this is really the central tenet of my talk. As Tom already noted, yes, I've continued to have a profound interest on the interplay between the larger society and science and engineering quite broadly, and in this case, I want to suggest that research in the sciences, even research on the most fundamental of questions, that research can address problems that have significant import for the citizenry. So there is this connection that should take place. There is the possibility, then, of thinking of the ways in which science and engineering, fundamental research, can address problems. But I want to propose, as well, that science acts to unravel complexities that intrigue us as human beings, so it's not always because there is some problem to be addressed, not in the sense of some social matter to be followed up on. In this case of the second point, that science can work to unravel complexities that intrigue us, I'm indebted to observations from Vannevar Bush. Anyone connected with the Science Foundation will know that we rather regularly refer to Vannevar Bush, for it was his vision that spurred the creation in 1950 of the National Science Foundation. This is a history I will not try to recount because sitting here is another great colleague of mine and one who came back to the foundation to rescue what was taking place in science education, Bassam Shakhashiri. But Vannevar Bush continually and forcefully asserted that science is not merely about undertaking discoveries with clear or immediate applications. Rather, he said, science rests, and here's the quote, rests on the face that it is the privilege of man, or woman, it is the privilege to understand, and that is the mission of human beings. 

So it's this quest to understand that serves as a justification for public investments in the pursuit of science. I'll get to the illustrations in a moment, but before doing that, let me say a little bit about the meaning that I have here of science. I mean a body of knowledge about given phenomena, a body built through systematic inquiry whose findings can be repeated, confirmed, or falsified. So it's this body of knowledge, not the specific arena of phenomena, that is the hallmark of science. The knowledge can shed light, for example, on a specific fear. It could be this fear of life, and, you know, that's this fear that biological science is most concerned about. The knowledge can deal with the properties of and processes associated with the universe and matter or the context for physical science, that the focus can be on human development and interactions, the concerns of behavioral or social science. So what unifies all of these areas is that they're concerned with fundamental or core questions that can be addressed systematically and, I will propose, whose answers count for far more than those who hold the credentials in science or engineering. Now, I'm already going to... Let's see if I can get to the right... 

Okay. All right. Science and service to society. I'm going to start with an example from space weather. For space weather demonstrates a topic of seemingly narrow scientific interest, but the topic has profound consequences for the public. And actually, the topic of space weather has spawned calls for action from the highest levels of government. Just last year, the science adviser to President Obama, John Holdren, joined with the scientific adviser to Britain's Prime Minister, that adviser being John Beddington, to write an editorial on space weather. Now, what in the world would generate such an interest at the highest levels of government? What is it about the ejection of charged gas from the sun that would generate this kind of interest? When we look here at a slide that indicates that solar weather begins with emissions from the sun. That is what you will see on the slide, the part of the slide over closest to me. The emissions generate the aurora oval. 

That's all the way over to right side of the screen. And that's the way it's seen from a satellite. But you can also see with the naked eye the aurora borealis, or the northern lights. So that's all of these sets of things. And you see the beauty in the northern lights. But, in fact, there's more to it than just the beauty. This is admittedly a very busy slide. You can interpret all of it if you want. I'm not going to try. [LAUGHTER] But the point is that the effects of solar weather are far from benign. 

So I want to direct your attention to the effects on the electricity grid, you see electricity grid disruption, and on the global positioning system, or GPS. What essentially happens is that there are charged particles ejected in the magnetic sphere of the Earth that those particles disturb radio waves and Earth currents, and those disturbances, in turn, disrupt electric power systems. Sparks and flashes from the plasma bubble there in the middle can interfere with signals from GPS satellites, satellites used for shipboard navigation, for atomic clocks, and yes, for the check-in feature of Facebook. [LAUGHTER] And countless other forms of communication. And all of this is not just hypothetical. It's not these could happen, there are examples of the disruptions that have taken place. Solar storms, for example, have impeded the performance of Earth weather, the weather we have on Earth, it's also impeded performance of communication satellites, affected passenger planes, and imperiled the safety of astronauts. That's why this says look at all of these as potential consequences from what might, again, seem to be esoteric, the interest in storms from the flares of the sun. This slide, incidentally, comes from Lucent Technologies, and suggesting that industry has a lot of interest in solar weather. And there are good reasons for that interest. 

For in 1997, a mass ejection hit the magnetic field of the Earth, causing AT&T to lose its $200 million communication satellite, Telstar 401. In fact, I participated recently in a forum that included industrial, governmental, and university representatives about space weather who all concurred with the view that the more technologically advanced our society's become, the more vulnerable we are to the vagaries of space weather. One of my NSF colleagues, I'd asked him to give a presentation on space weather to the governing body or the policy body of the foundation the National Science Board. They sat there engrossed, thrilled, in a way scared, almost asking, what are we going to do? Well, there's probably no reason to panic completely, but I use this as an example that there are things that require the unraveling of determinants and consequences of space weather, but there is fundamental knowledge that's needed, fundamental knowledge about the sun, for example. There are so many things we don't know. And the man filling the gaps in the knowledge, then, really will require improved models, better platforms, for observation, but if we're going to have better models, better platforms, there must be interest and engagement from the public. This, then, is one of the examples that this is not just about something that scientists are interested in. There are other possibilities. I call this part oil and water because they, again, illustrate how seemingly esoteric questions can have profound implications for the public good. The public probably has not paid a lot of attention to the quality of computational models used to study coastal systems. 

I don't usually see people on the streets in Washington, DC, asking, have you looked at those recent analyses about the computational models to look at coastal systems? Or they don't say, well, the thing that is engaging me most these days, I did this instead of watching American Idol. [LAUGHTER] I was just concerned about do we have enough novel and efficient materials that can remove oil from the surface of large bodies of water? They don't raise the questions that way. Yet those were the questions that were extremely critical when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in April of 2010. Fortunately, there were experiences, models, materials that could be built on, again, thanks to some fundamental work that had been undertaken. But even with the prior work, there were unanswered questions that researchers had to move quickly to try to address. That through one of the mechanisms of the National Science Foundation, something that we call the Rapid Awards, we're able fund people to get in immediately to try to ask what are the other questions that we have to try to understand to get some handle on this kind of very widespread oil spill. So researchers from chemistry, from the marine science, from molecular biology, from political science among other fields, brought their tools of experiences to bear as an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil spread in the Gulf of Mexico. So this only gives you a little bit of a sense. I found it intriguing that among the researchers were mathematicians because mathematicians sometimes people have not thought of how the basic work in mathematics can be very implicative for important questions. Mathematicians said there are statistical and computational models that need revision if we're going to understand an activity like this. 

I also like something that came out of one of the projects from a group of engineers. These engineers drew on principles of design and from the work in morphology to develop gliding robotic fish, trying to ask how can we follow the oil plume and having to do it in the most creative ways. Well imagine if there hadn't been some prior work, could they have done anything to think about the design of these gliding robotic fish? The public, clearly, can appreciate the science associated with cleanup, but I'm suggesting that, perhaps, not as widely appreciated is the background work that made applications possible. A continued part, then, to say it matters, it should matter to the public what's done before you see the areas of application. But, as suggested earlier, the returns to science do not lie exclusively in the resolution of complex problems. Science also speaks to the curiosity we, as human beings, have. We have this curiosity about the worlds we inhabit, design, and alter. And, at times, that curiosity motivates the average citizen to probe territory that specialists simply look at in greater depth. And I'll use, in a moment, the interest in astronomy to illustrate. And at other times, scientists examine areas of interest that are of interest to the general public but not well understood by that public. 

And for that, I want to draw on examples from how children learn. So in the case, first, of astronomy. Here is a quote that I like a lot from Neil deGrasse Tyson who once said, "Not only do we live among the stars, but the stars live within us." Now, anybody who's followed Tyson will know that's not an unusual quote for him because he reports that at age nine he made his first visit to the Hayden Planetarium. And as you know, that's where he is now. He is in charge of the planetarium. He went to the planetarium, looked closely at stars for the first time, and was hooked. He was so hooked that he began to embark systematically on the study of astronomy when he was 15, or much younger, and at 15 he became a lecturer. He lectured to other people about the stars. But he stresses what brought him to this was his curiosity. It wasn't a sense that there's some problem out there that I'm going to address. 

No. He says the experience from the Hayden Planetarium was so strong that he had no choice in the matter. Again, as he puts it, the universe called me. This kind of view, then, that there is this kind of calling that comes out of just this basic curiosity permits people to probe the sky, the night sky, as you see in this example. The probes often prove to be very enthralling. Let me give you an example from a White House event in 2010 that honored rural space week. More than 150 students gathered on the south lawn of the White House for this event. And the science adviser, John Holdren, has reported on more than one occasion that this was especially attractive to the first daughters, the two who happened to be in the White House. The Obama daughters declared the event, he says, as totally cool. [LAUGHTER] This is that kind of a situation that says, yeah, this is the kind of an activity just curiosity can prompt this kind of response. 

And the Tyson experience shows that exploration of the celestial realm can generate budding scientists. Here is a case of another, this is a budding scientist, Caroline Moore, of Warwick, New York. At age 14, she studied stars using photos she downloaded to her computer. She carefully reviewed the pictures and, in fact, discovered a supernova that has been named in her honor. And in so doing, became one of the youngest observers to discover a supernova. Actually, when I was first working on this we had that she was the youngest at age 14, only to have been reminded that there was a 10-year-old who had made a discovery that had ended up for her recognition. But this is very interesting of the kind of curiosity I'm suggesting that prompts that kind of inquiry not always necessarily appreciated by other people because, according to the reports, as Caroline was busily examining these photos, her mother was imploring her, to spend less time on your computer and more time cleaning your room. [LAUGHTER] But the professional community of astronomers now make observations through far more sophisticated telescopes and observational systems than Neil Tyson used or that Caroline Moore has deployed. The general public does not use these complex instruments or systems for their own observations. No. 

It's not nearly as sophisticated as that. But interestingly, there is a mass of data now emerging from telescopes that potentially will be available in classrooms, in science museums, in other settings that will allow people, then, not to make the observations themselves, but to be able to examine what comes out of the information that others have collected. This kind of curiosity, then, can, in fact, be addressed in some very interesting ways. But another area that sparks curiosity among more than the research community is this question: how do babies learn? How does learning take place? Especially, how do babies learn language and abstract concepts? And, as one research has said, don't tell me it works by pointing because if you point, who knows where the finger is pointing? It could be towards any number of things. If I point out to the room, is it the chair, is it the person, or what? And if it were just through that kind of pointing, how would anybody ever learn verbs? So, this has led to this curiosity of what in the world does go on, and this is looked at in very systematic ways. The outcomes from the investigations on such topics as learning of concepts we now know could generate models for teaching. But, again, I would suggest a lot of people who are interested aren't interested because they're saying, oh, I think I want to know this so that I can help the learning of Miss Marley, the granddaughter of our friends here. No. It is just very fascinating. What does some of the systematic work uncover? Well, if you look at this slide, here we see in one instance, two babies stacking and sorting blocks. 

Interestingly, they figured out how to build blocks. Some of that is through trial and error. Sometimes they stand up; sometimes they don't. But know, too, that they have built blocks with varying color variations. So it's not just any block. No. Gone through. And this happens with enough frequency that researchers have said that babies, infants, think like scientists. And I don't mean trial and error. [LAUGHTER] That they experiment. 

They try out things. They try out objects in this kind of a case. They test out ideas. And, in part, language learning takes place in very similar ways. Testing out, trying out what happens. But the other part of the slide is very much around language learning. And one of the reasons why language learning is of such interest, and we know how hard it is for people to acquire a second language after they've gotten older, I'll just put it that way. And so in terms of what happens, we know that very young children understand grandma long before they are taught a language. They can figure out the structure of language. So over here on the slide, here is an infant being tested on response to language cues. 

And someone, when they were looking at the head, they said that cute little cap. That's not a cap. It is a cap but it contains passive electrodes that measure brain activity. And let me tell you, they're not sticking things into the head of a child. [LAUGHTER] That's why these are passive electrodes. But they're measuring brain activity. So the researchers are looking at this activity as Spanish and English words or sounds are given to the baby. So one is following, then, what kind of reaction is being made in the brain. So how are we understanding a lot of things about how all of this takes place and takes place very early when this is much too early to have gone to the baby and asked, so what did you think that word actually meant? What did you understand me to say? No. They have to be far more novel approaches. 

And, of course, many people here on the Madison campus know that some of this back-breaking work on babies, on looking at gazes, for example, where babies will attend in experiments, a lot of that work is taking place right here at the University of Wisconsin. Now, if it matters to the public, and you're members of that public, if it matters what kinds of questions get asked, I think you would also have an interest in, well, what about the funding because remember, this is funding coming from taxpayers. So, in this case, we are going to take a very gross look at the level of funding involving just a subset of the federal agencies. You see what the slide shows. That the Department of Health and Human Services, in terms of federal budgets for science, it's just far bigger than anybody else. That's where not all of that is the National Institutes of Health. National Institutes of Health, the institutes are found within HHS but, of course, that's where you've got the other programs, Medicare, and a lot of the other social service programs. Department of Energy is another big funder of research, and the Environmental Protection Agency. And, actually, the one all the way down at the bottom is the National Science Foundation. So, the foundation is not a big place for funds with, as Tom indicated earlier, a budget of just over $7 billion. 

But that funding is for basic research in most fields of science taking place in higher education institutions of the US. With reference to trends in funding, what we see is that US had been in the leading place, internationally, with reference to funding. But what has been taking place more recently is the growth, especially for a set of Asian countries and the countries in the European Union, that's where the growth is taking place. There just is not the pattern for the US. This kind of growth suggests that it's not just in this country, then, that these questions about returns, about investments and the public interest, public policies are of profound interest in many parts of the world. And this changing global situation draws a lot of interest in policy circles. Whether it's the US Congress, whether it's the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, whether it's a host of other entities, they're all looking at what in the world are the implications of this kind of change that would take place. I want to propose in a moment that kind of a question should not be left completely in the hands of those who reside within the beltway. Those who are found in the capital region of the US. For indeed, these questions are a profound interest. 

So let me start to wrap up because I want to maintain, then, that the public I have in mind extends far beyond the boundaries of Washington, DC. The influences on what happens or the questions that are raised for the support of those questions, the impact comes from what happens elsewhere in the nation. You know that most vividly in the case of congress. For members of congress listen to their constituents. They don't just sit there, well not always, they don't usually sit there and just listen to one another. So the kinds of, when they have to make decisions about authorizing and appropriating funds, people from their places make a difference. There's a whole set of private organizations that also bring people together and make all kinds of input into what's going to take place. And then the research community. The research community is not sitting either in the capital region. The researchers, like you, many of you here are, in fact, engaged in research, and researchers shape, significantly, the kinds of questions that others will undertake. 

I have chosen to explore science and engineering against the backdrop of the public and policy for three reasons. At least I think. The last time I looked at this, these were my three reasons. Let me tell you, things do change. But okay, I wanted to do this first because it helps remind me of my responsibility to the wider populace. When my first stint at the National Science Foundation and calls came in, my secretary says do you want to take that call, and I said yes, I'm a public servant. She says I want to see how long that lasts. [LAUGHTER] But it is all too easy to forget that connection with the larger public, and so I said that's what I never want to forget. And I have a responsibility so let me see on whatever occasion I can find to try to explore, to examine, what that responsibility means. But I also wanted to do it because it keeps me committed to a fundamental principle of the National Science Foundation. 

That principle being the broadening of participation. For any awards, and those of you who have received NSF awards, you know there are two criteria used. Intellectual merit; is the idea at the cutting edge? And broader impacts; will the work have impacts beyond those who are undertaking the work? So broadening participation also means are we doing things that bring more of the talent into the examination of important questions. Are we ensuring that we're reaching into the segments of the population, wherever they might be found, into the population in ways that would be important. And the third reason I wanted to do this is the reality that the resources, the funding, the people, the ideas on which an organization, such as NSF, depends will not be forthcoming if separation from the populace prevails. It's a very selfish reason. Remember earlier I said you're taxpayers I've said that to Girl Scout groups, to all kinds of segments saying I know the fortunes of funding will depend on the extent to which a larger public believes that the funding is for important kinds of issues. And so it might be selfish but it's realistic, and thus, I'm saying in my own role then, I can ill afford to ignore the place of the public. I cannot and I would say that anyone in the kind of policy positions cannot afford either to ignore and to suggest that there can be separation from this larger public. So in closing, I want to express my profound gratitude. 

I suppose first, not I suppose, I certainly have my appreciation to the University of Wisconsin. Appreciation because, among other things, a fundamental idea for this institution has been the Wisconsin Idea. The idea that the boundaries, as it used to be stated, the boundaries of the campus are the boundaries of the state. No longer is that even thought of as setting the boundaries but is suggested that there is a responsibility, that idea that you could do things in the public interest. So I want to thank the university for that. I want to thank the organizers of this event for giving me the opportunity to reflect on how intriguing and rewarding can be the connections between science and engineering to the problems and to the inquisitiveness that I propose is found throughout this nation and throughout all of the population. So with that, let me again say thank you for this opportunity, and thank you for what I will know, what I know will be your continued involvement and engagement with the role of science and engineering because you will see the world as something that is not separate from but something intricately involved with the things that concern you. So with that, thank you. [APPLAUSE]