United States President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology

President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
Agency overview
Formed	September 30, 2001
Preceding agency	President's Science Advisory Committee ;
Headquarters	New Executive Office Building ; 725 17th Street NW, Washington, D.C.
Agency executives	John Holdren, Co-Chair; Eric Lander, Co-Chair;
Parent agency	Office of Science and Technology Policy
Website	President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology

Last updated April 01, 2019

The United States President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is a council, chartered (or re-chartered) in each administration with a broad mandate to advise the President on science and technology. The current PCAST was established by Executive Order 13226 on September 30, 2001, by President George W. Bush, and was most recently re-chartered by President Obama's April 21, 2010, Executive Order 13539.

The President of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.

George W. Bush 43rd president of the United States

George Walker Bush is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He had previously served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.

History

The council follows a tradition of presidential advisory panels focused on science and technology that dates back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Science Advisory Board, continued by President Harry Truman. Renamed the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) by Dwight Eisenhower, it was disbanded by President Richard Nixon.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. As a dominant leader of his party, he built the New Deal Coalition, which realigned American politics into the Fifth Party System and defined American liberalism throughout the middle third of the 20th century. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II. Roosevelt is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in American history, as well as among the most influential figures of the 20th century. Though he has also been subject to much criticism, he is generally rated by scholars as one of the three greatest U.S. presidents, along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

In 1951, President of the United States Harry S. Truman established the Science Advisory Committee (SAC) as part of the Office of Defense Mobilization (ODM). Its purpose was to advise the president on scientific matters in general, and those related to defense issues in particular.

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974. He had previously served as the 36th vice president of the United States from 1953 to 1961, and prior to that as both a U.S. representative and senator from California.

Reagan science advisor Jay Keyworth re-established a smaller "White House Science Council" It reported, however, to him, not directly to the President.^[1] Renamed PCAST, and reporting directly to the President, a new council was chartered by President George H. W. Bush in 1990, enabling the President to receive advice directly from the private and academic sectors on technology, scientific research priorities, and mathematics and science education.^[2]

Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Prior to his presidency, he was a Hollywood actor and union leader before serving as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975.

George Herbert Walker Bush was an American politician who served as the 41st president of the United States from 1989 to 1993 and the 43rd vice president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, he held posts that included those of congressman, ambassador, and CIA director. Until his son George W. Bush became the 43rd president in 2001, he was usually known simply as George Bush.

Mission

The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology mission is to provide advice to the President and the Executive Office of the President. PCAST makes policy recommendations in areas such as understanding of science, technology, and innovation. PCAST is administered by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

Recent PCAST reports have addressed antibiotic resistance,^[3] education technology (with a focus on MOOCs),^[4] cybersecurity, climate change,^[5] networking and information technology,^[6] and agricultural preparedness, among many others.^[7]

Antimicrobial resistance is the ability of a microbe to resist the effects of medication that once could successfully treat the microbe. The term antibiotic resistance is a subset of AMR, as it applies only to bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics. Resistant microbes are more difficult to treat, requiring alternative medications or higher doses of antimicrobials. These approaches may be more expensive, more toxic or both. Microbes resistant to multiple antimicrobials are called multidrug resistant (MDR). Those considered extensively drug resistant (XDR) or totally drug resistant (TDR) are sometimes called "superbugs".

A massive open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive courses with user forums to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs), as well as immediate feedback to quick quizzes and assignments. MOOCs are a recent and widely researched development in distance education, first introduced in 2006 and emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012.

Climate change occurs when changes in Earth's climate system result in new weather patterns that last for at least a few decades, and maybe for millions of years. The climate system is comprised of five interacting parts, the atmosphere (air), hydrosphere (water), cryosphere, biosphere, and lithosphere. The climate system receives nearly all of its energy from the sun, with a relatively tiny amount from earth's interior. The climate system also gives off energy to outer space. The balance of incoming and outgoing energy, and the passage of the energy through the climate system, determines Earth's energy budget. When the incoming energy is greater than the outgoing energy, earth's energy budget is positive and the climate system is warming. If more energy goes out, the energy budget is negative and earth experiences cooling.

Members and structure

PCAST has been enlarged since its inception and currently consists of 18 members plus the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, who serves as the Council's Co-Chair. The council members, distinguished individuals appointed by the President, are drawn from industry, education, research institutions, and other NGOs. The council is administered by an Executive Director.

Office of Science and Technology Policy US government entity

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is a department of the United States government, part of the Executive Office of the President (EOP), established by United States Congress on May 11, 1976, with a broad mandate to advise the President on the effects of science and technology on domestic and international affairs.

The Trump administration has not yet appointed members of PCAST. The outgoing membership from the Obama administration include:

John P. Holdren serves as one of two co-chairs of PCAST in addition to his duties as the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President and Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. Previously he was a Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He also served concurrently as Professor of Environmental Science and Policy in Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and as Director of the independent, nonprofit Woods Hole Research Center. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as a former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship.
Eric Lander serves as one of two co-chairs of PCAST as well as the Director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is a Professor of Biology at MIT and Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, and is a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He was one of the principal leaders of the Human Genome Project, recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship and is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine.
William H. Press is one of the two vice-chairs, and is Professor of Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, has wide-ranging expertise in computer science, astrophysics, and international security. A member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, he previously served as Deputy Laboratory Director for Science and Technology at the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1998 to 2004. He is a Professor of Astronomy and Physics at Harvard University and a former member of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (1982-1998).
Maxine Savitz is one of the two vice chairs, and is a retired general manager of Technology Partnerships at Honeywell and has more than 30 years of experience managing research, development and implementation programs for the public and private sectors, including in the aerospace, transportation, and industrial sectors. From 1979 to 1983 she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Conservation in the U.S. Department of Energy. She currently serves as vice-president of the National Academy of Engineering.
Rosina Bierbaum, a widely recognized expert in climate-change science and ecology, is Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. Her PhD is in evolutionary biology and ecology. She served as Associate Director for Environment in OSTP in the Clinton administration, as well as Acting Director of OSTP in 2000-2001. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Christine Cassel is President and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine and previously served as Dean of the School of Medicine and Vice President for Medical Affairs at Oregon Health & Science University. A member of the U.S. Institute of Medicine, she is a leading expert in geriatric medicine and quality of care.
Christopher Chyba is Professor of Astrophysical Sciences and International Affairs at Princeton University and a member of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. His scientific work focuses on solar system exploration and his security-related research emphasizes nuclear and biological weapons policy, proliferation, and terrorism. He served on the White House staff from 1993 to 1995 at the National Security Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy and was awarded a MacArthur Prize Fellowship (2001) for his work in both planetary science and international security.
Sylvester James Gates, Jr., is the John S. Toll Professor of Physics and Director of the Center for String and Particle Theory at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the first African American to hold an endowed chair in physics at a major research university. He has served as a consultant to the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense, and the Educational Testing Service, and held appointments at MIT, Harvard, California Institute of Technology, and Howard University.
Mark Gorenberg. is a Managing Director of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, which he joined in 1990 when the firm began investing its first fund. Previously, he was with Sun Microsystems, where he managed emerging new media areas and was a member of the original SPARCstation team.
Susan L. Graham is the Pehong Chen Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley. She has won the Harvard Medal, the IEEE John von Neumann Medal, the Berkeley Citation, and the ACM/IEEE Ken Kennedy Award. She was named a University of California, Berkeley Fellow in 2011. She was a member of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) from 1997 to 2003. She served as the Chief Computer Scientist for the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI) from 1997 to 2005. She currently chairs the Computing Research Association’s Computing Community Consortium. Graham is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and she is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
J. Michael McQuade is Senior Vice President for Science & Technology at United Technologies Corporation. Prior to joining UTC in 2006, he served as Vice President of 3M’s Medical Division, and before that he was President of Eastman Kodak’s Health Imaging Business. He is a member of the Board of Trustees for Carnegie Mellon University, the Board of Directors of Project HOPE, and the Board of Trustees for Miss Porter’s School. He serves on advisory and visiting boards for a number of university science and engineering schools. He currently serves as a member of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board.
Chad Mirkin is the Founding Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology, the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Materials Science & Engineering, and Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University. He is a chemist and a world-renowned nanoscience expert, who is known for his development of nanoparticle-based biodetection schemes, the invention of Dip-Pen Nanolithography, and contributions to supramolecular chemistry. He is one of only fifteen scientists, engineers and medical doctors, and the only chemist to be elected into all three branches of the National Academies, and he has been recognized for his accomplishments with over 90 national and international awards, including the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, the Linus Pauling Medal, and the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology.
Mario J. Molina is a Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego, and the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, as well as Director of the Mario Molina Center for Energy and Environment in Mexico City. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 for his role in elucidating the threat to the Earth's ozone layer of chlorofluorocarbon gases. The only Mexican-born Nobel laureate in science, he served on PCAST for both Clinton terms. He is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.
Craig Mundie is Chief Research and Strategy Officer at Microsoft. He has 39 years of experience in the computer industry, beginning as a developer of operating systems. He co-founded and served as CEO of Alliant Computer Systems.
Barbara A. Schaal is Professor of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis. She is a renowned plant geneticist who has used molecular genetics to understand the evolution and ecology of plants, ranging from the U.S. Midwest to the tropics. She serves as Vice President of the National Academy of Sciences, the first woman ever elected to that role.
Eric Schmidt is the executive Chairman of Google and a former member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc. Before joining Google, he served as Chief Technology Officer for Sun Microsystems and later as CEO of Novell Inc.
Daniel P. Schrag is the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University and Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He is also Director of the Harvard-wide Center for Environment. He was trained as a marine geochemist and has employed a variety of methods to study the carbon cycle and climate over a wide range of Earth’s history. Awarded a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 2000, he has recently been working on technological approaches to mitigating future climate change.
Ed Penhoet is a Director of Alta Partners. He serves on the board of directors for ChemoCentryx, Immune Design, Metabolex, and Scynexis. He was a co-founder of Chiron and served as the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer from 1981 until 1998. He was also a member of the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). From 2004-2008 he served as the President of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation where he is currently serving on the board. Penhoet was a faculty member of the Biochemistry Department of the University of California, Berkeley. From July 1998-July 2002, he served as Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the US Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He serves on the board of Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland.

Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with about 6,700 undergraduate students and about 15,250 postgraduate students. Established in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, clergyman John Harvard, Harvard is the United States' oldest institution of higher learning, and its history, influence, and wealth have made it one of the world's most prestigious universities.

The Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) is a scientific research organization that studies climate change impacts and solutions. WHRC was named the world's top climate change think tank for 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 by the International Center for Climate Governance.

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Research Council.

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Calestous Juma FRS HonFREng was an internationally recognised authority in the application of science and technology to sustainable development worldwide. He was named one of the most influential 100 Africans in 2012, 2013 and 2014 by the New African magazine. He was Professor of the Practice of International Development and Faculty Chair of the Innovation for Economic Development Executive Program at Harvard Kennedy School. Juma was Director of the School's Science, Technology and Globalization Project at Harvard Kennedy School as well as the Agricultural Innovation in Africa Project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. His latest book, Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies. was published by Oxford University Press in 2016.

Arden L. Bement Jr. American nuclear engineer

Arden Lee Bement Jr. is an American engineer and scientist and has served in executive positions in government, industry and academia. He is a former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Advanced Technology, Chief Technical Officer of TRW, Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Following the end of his six-year term at NSF, on June 1, 2010 he became the founding director of the Global Policy Research Institute and Chief Global Affairs officer at Purdue University.

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John Paul Holdren is an American scientist who served as the senior advisor to President Barack Obama on science and technology issues through his roles as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

William H. Press Astrophysicist, theoretical physicist, and computational biologist

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Helen Rees OBE is Founder and Executive Director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute of the University of Witwatersrand, which is the university's largest research entity, with a mandate for research, health systems strengthening and training. Wits RHI is a WHO and UNAIDS Collaborating Centre in reproductive health and HIV respectively and is also a South African Medical Research Council Collaborating Centre in HIV and TB.

References

↑ Robert C. Cowan, "Reagan Adviser Keyworth on Administration's Science Policy", Christian Science Monitor , January 22, 1985.
↑ Elizabeth Pennisi, "Low-Key Start For Bush's Science Panel", The Scientist, March 5, 1990.
↑ "PCAST Releases New Report on Combating Antibiotic Resistance" . Retrieved 2015-09-02.
↑ Jim Gates; Craig Mundie; Shirley Ann Jackson (18 December 2013). "PCAST Considers Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Related Technologies in Higher Education". The White House Blog.
↑ Weiss, Rick (22 March 2013). "PCAST Releases New Climate Report". The White House Blog.
↑ David Shaw; Susan Graham; Peter Lee (17 January 2013). "PCAST Updates Assessment of Networking and InfoTech R&D".
↑ "PCAST Documents & Reports". White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Retrieved 27 January 2014.

External links

[^{[ dead link ]}http://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/pcast United States President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology]

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[1] Robert C. Cowan, "Reagan Adviser Keyworth on Administration's Science Policy", Christian Science Monitor , January 22, 1985.

[2] Elizabeth Pennisi, "Low-Key Start For Bush's Science Panel", The Scientist, March 5, 1990.

[3] "PCAST Releases New Report on Combating Antibiotic Resistance" . Retrieved 2015-09-02.

[4] Jim Gates; Craig Mundie; Shirley Ann Jackson (18 December 2013). "PCAST Considers Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Related Technologies in Higher Education". The White House Blog.

[5] Weiss, Rick (22 March 2013). "PCAST Releases New Climate Report". The White House Blog.

[6] David Shaw; Susan Graham; Peter Lee (17 January 2013). "PCAST Updates Assessment of Networking and InfoTech R&D".

[7] "PCAST Documents & Reports". White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Retrieved 27 January 2014.