Bill Press

UT Austin, March 2, 1:00 pm

Science in the White House

Increasingly, for many public issues, good science is essential to the creation of good policy. What are the mechanisms for informing and advising government policy-makers, from the President of the United States on down, about science–especially for rapidly changing fields such as artificial intelligence, clean energy, and health-related technology? Within the White House, science advice comes from a full-time Science Advisor and staff, and from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), a group of Presidentially appointed outsiders. I was privileged to be one of these on President Obama’s PCAST for eight years, and now serve on President Biden’s PCAST. My talk will discuss the commonalities and differences between these two administrations, how and why PCAST achieved success on some issues, but was ineffective on others.