Research and discovery are pretty good on their own, but funding supports more than just research. The science and technology work that goes on in grad schools and labs across the country helps to create jobs. Without the NSF, there would be no Google (responsible for 24,000 jobs). Without DARPA, there would be no Internet (responsible for countless jobs). These jobs are no slouches, either, with the average high-tech worker in Silicon Valley earning over $100,000 in 2008.

Federal funding has been important for me, personally, as well. I would never have gone to grad school without federal funding. After accumulating a pile of loans during my undergrad years, further education was an option only if it was paid for. The NSF and DARPA supported my grad school research and the bevy of high-tech jobs in Silicon Valley drew me to California when I graduated.

There. Was that convincing? I hope so, because that’s what I pitched to Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s legislative aide when I was in Washington last week.

I was in D.C. as part of IEEE-USA, which partnered with other professional organizations to bring nearly 300 scientists and engineers to the nation’s capital for Science, Engineering, and Technology Congressional Visit Day.

CVD is a chance not only to advocate for science funding, but to do so with the support of IEEE, the world’s largest professional organization of engineers and technologists. Going into a meeting with the backing and support of 300,000 engineers (including 40,000 in my home state of California) gives you a lot more confidence—and gets more attention from congressional staffers—than doing it alone.

As it happened, we took these meetings the day before the government almost shut down. As strongly as I feel about science issues, they seemed a little less important that day, and I even felt a little sheepish advocating for money. The shutdown possibility loomed larged and seemed more important than the NSF and DoD research budgets.

Would the staffers we talked to even be at work the next week? Would they be too busy and distracted to even talk to us? Turns out, they were more focused than I could ever be in their shoes, and they gave us their full attention in every meeting. Now that is some professionalism. I was in awe.

Have you ever visited your representatives’ offices in Washington? What would you talk about if you had the chance?

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We need and use all these channels to communicate research, discovery, and scientific milestones. No single message can reach all audiences. Some people are drawn in by big and powerful stories, others are touched by the personal and relatable.

That’s why museums play such an important role in communicating science to the public. In one space, different exhibits can hit everyone, at some point, right between the eyes.

When I was a kid, I loved the birth- and death-rate counter at the Boston Museum of Science. It flashes red every time someone on earth dies and blue every time someone is born—empirically, of course. It’s a tiny display, hidden near the exits. But when I was little, I always insisted on visiting it. My sister, on the other hand, liked the T-Rex exhibit and dragged the family to the big, intimidating skeleton. To each her own.

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, which I visited recently when I found myself with a free afternoon in D.C., runs the gamut from big and powerful to the small and personal. They have on display a reconstructed 45-foot, 28,000-pound V2 missile and a pre-Apollo 15 Lunar Roving Vehicle test unit. My sister would have loved those.

Me, I was struck by the smaller, more personal exhibits. I imagined what it would be like to be onboard an aircraft carrier during World War II and learned a bit about legendary German fighter pilot the Red Baron. I was also riveted by a list of requirements to be a stewardess in the 1950s. (Of the eight requirements, I meet only two. Totally moot and pointless, but I couldn’t help feeling a little discouraged.)

As I wandered around the museum—free of charge, by the way—I saw kids and adults ooh and ahh over the missile-type exhibits and go in for closer looks at the Red Baron. Many audiences, one channel.

Have you ever visited the Smithsonian? Do you think museums are a good way to communicate science to the public?

Technology failed Japan this week, however. Its state-of-the art technology and infrastructure, though undoubtedly life-saving, wasn’t enough to prevent the death toll from climbing to an expected 10,000 people.

Japan has some of the most sophisticated earthquake and tsunami warning systems—and some of the strictest building codes—in the world. Spurred to action after the 1995 Kobe earthquake that killed over 6,000 people, the Japanese government invested billions of dollars in technology and infrastructure to protect against future—and assured, in Japan—quakes.

Japan’s warning systems and technologies worked as intended and were effective during this disaster, but technology just wasn’t enough. The investments they made have been fairly comprehensive, though, including the following disaster responses:

• Earthquake warnings. Earthquakes don’t give a lot of warning, of course. But the earthquake warning system in Japan—which notifies officials and the public via phone messaging as well as traditional media—can give a few seconds’ notice before a quake hits. Not much, but enough to enable transit workers to shut down trains and some people to take cover.
• Tsunami warnings. The billion-dollar tsunami warning system uses a network of over a thousand GPS-based sensors and can give people several minutes to evacuate before waves start hitting.
• Infrastructure. Japan’s strict building codes, long among the most stringent in the world, meant that the buildings sway instead of crumble during the quake.  Seawalls, derided as eyesores by some, protect the coast from Tsunami waves.
• The Internet. It’s still up and running in Japan. Access to information (and to loved ones) is paramount during a disaster, and Japan’s undersea cables have remained mostly intact so far, allowing much-needed communication and response.

Technology can do a lot for us. It saved lives in Japan, and in the future it will surely save more. But it’s just not enough. Someday, advanced technologies will be more effective in disasters like this one, but in the meantime all we can do is try to help.

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Boy, that Watson was something else, wasn’t he?

I myself watch Jeopardy! regularly and even DVR it, so I’m sure you can understand my geeky salivating excitement at the computing experiment.  Even if you don’t usually watch Jeopardy!, I hope you had a chance to check out the anthropomorphized supercomputer plowing his way through Alex Trebek’s answers and questions.

Reaction to Watson’s win has been tinged with a bit of snickering and scoffing. That stupid computer thought Toronto was a U.S. city! His computer-quick reaction time gave him an unfair advantage! And so what if computers are good at trivia; they still can’t do anything good.

Despite the skepticism, Watson is a truly amazing feat of natural language processing and artificial intelligence.  The reason he triggers such reactions is in part, I believe, because of the accessibility of Artificial Intelligence.

Way back in 1956, the proposal that launched the field of AI (via a research summer at my alma mater Dartmouth College) had lofty goals even by today’s standards. The 10 scientists conjectured that “every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it.” 55 years later, that reality still sounds just as plausible and just as futuristic.

Unlike other branches with computer science, the promise of AI is easy for us to imagine. Fifty years ago, few people dreamed of an Internet that would connect you with all the information in the world, mobile phones that fit in your pocket and do absolutely everything, or video games you control with your body.

But a machine that understands what you’re saying, cleans up after you, plays ping-pong? That’s easy to dream of, and hard to live up to. And Watson is one step closer.

Did you watch Watson on Jeopardy!? What do you think of the advances in AI that led to Watson’s development?

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Hedy Lamarr, known primarily for being beautiful and seductive, was also a co-inventor of spread-spectrum broadcasting, a technology that laid the groundwork for secure broadcast communications and even modern-day Wi-Fi. Spread-spectrum techniques use wide-band signals that are hard to detect, jam, or intercept, making them useful in military and secure applications. It’s pretty amazing Lamarr patented the underlying concept for it way back in 1942.

I’ve never believed that any of us must fit a particular mold, and I love that this scientist comes in a unique package. Lamarr starred in over 35 films in an acting career that spanned 60 years, and she also had a sort-of “Hollywood” personal life that included 6 marriages and 3 children. She also holds a patent and was awarded the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award in 1997.

Hedy Lamarr is an unusual source of inspiration but newly and firmly on my list of women scientists I admire. What historical and scientific figures have you been surprised by?

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That’s why I love Expanding Your Horizons, a program that encourages interest in math and science careers among middle-school-aged young women. They bring in women scientists to give talks and lead workshops, lending a real-world spark to the seemingly abstract world of doing science and tech for living.

I’ve led workshops for EYH the previous two years, and both have been a blast. Although it’s been a while since my junior high days, I try to put myself in their shoes: What would have interested me at that age? If I can find the answer, maybe these girls will discover a love for science earlier than I did.

The two events I’ve volunteered for have been a learning curve for me, certainly more than for the girls who attended my workshops. The first year, my bright idea was using popsicle sticks I had painstakingly created (each with the title of a book and author in tiny handwriting) to demonstrate creating an inverted index. That exercise turned out a little more boring than I expected. (“Popsicle sticks? Oh boy!” was never uttered.)

I also used a phonebook as a metaphor to illustrate binary search—and came to find out, few of them had used a phonebook before. That make you feel old? Me too.

The next year, I decided I wanted to create something in the workshop, something each girl could take home. So I introduced them to the concept of binary numbers, and each girl made an individual calendar out of legos with her birthday on it. Red for one, white for zero. The girls who finished faster killed the remaining time by deciphering one another’s calendars.

The legos were more fun, for the girls and for me. I sure haven’t figure out how to share a love of science and math, but I hope that a few of them found binary numbers interesting and fun in lego form. Next year, I hope I can come up with something even better.

Have you shared a love of science and technology with a younger generation? What did you do, and how did it work?

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Among us techie types, I find that the socially inept comes in two flavors: those who withdraw from the crowd and conversation completely, and those who turn into total spazzes. I myself fall into the second category. In fact, I’m currently living under a pallor of shame from having devolved into a shrieking fangirl upon meeting the Go-Go’s drummer at a recent work-related event.

So I clearly haven’t conquered my awkwardness, but I have developed some mitigation strategies over the years that help me through some of these situations:

• Just go. For us maladroits, it can be easy to simply pass up networking events and work-related social activities. You know they’re important, though, so commit yourself to going. I volunteer with sfAWIS, a gig I could do entirely from behind my computer. As a volunteer, though, it’s important for me to attend the monthly events, so I do (usually).
• Help out. Maybe the organizer needs help setting up, taking care of the refreshments, sharing the hashtag. Volunteer to lend a hand. Being busy makes you less self-conscious and it invites conversation from those new to the event. Plus, making a connection with the organizer is itself networking.
• Ask questions. If you ask people about themselves, they’ll think you’re incredibly fascinating. And it saves you from having to talk too much. Win-win!
• Prep your elevator pitch. People will ask about you, too. Prep and (if you need to; I do) practice your 30-second job description. Have a 2-minute version handy, too, for the folks who are especially interested.
• Embrace the awkward. In addition to being awkward, I am also bubbly and exciteable (see above, re. Go-Go’s drummer). I can’t pretend to be smooth and cool no matter how much networking practice I get. So when I meet new people, I don’t fight my instinct to bound up and go “Hi! I’m Laney!” It gets the ball rolling and lets them know how spazzy I am. Hey, just being myself.
• Follow up. This can be the hardest part. When you come home from a conference or event and have a stack of business cards in your hand, you need to send emails to the folks you met. God, what do I say? Am I wasting this person’s time? Do they even remember me? My advice here is to keep it short, sweet, and personal. Four sentences, tops. I try to reference a particular conversation I had with that person. If I really want a response, I ask a question. Then, I cringe when I press “send” and try not to think about it again. That’s just me.

Do you struggle with awkwardness at networking events? How do you deal with it?

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Now, I work at a nonprofit. It’s a technology nonprofit, so there are plenty of folks just as comfortable as anyone with whatever tools comes our way. But there is no common background among all of us, no shared understanding. There’s a gap, in other words, between the techies and the not-so-techies. With a wide range of work experiences and expertise, it’s more of a spectrum than a hard-and-fast gap, but it exists nonetheless.

The gap really became apparent to me when I set up a Wiki for my new department at my new job. I set it up when my boss said, “You know, I think a lot of people here don’t know who is on our team or what we work on.” With most project-based work at the organization done in offline documentation and small-group meetings, no wonder that was the case.

So I set up a Wiki to document and share the people on our team and what we’re working on. Back in Silicon Valley, a Wiki takes shape on its own: “This is how we share with one another. Go put stuff on it.” And we all implicitly understand the value and the reason behind the new tool.

The same message failed miserably at my nonprofit, though. In fact, since I set it up my first week, I’m the only one who has added content to it. Big fail on my part.

I think my next step is to write a set of explicit guidelines for when to use a Wiki and why it’s valuable. I’m not sure it will work, but I want to keep trying.

Do you experience a gap between tech and non-tech where you work? How do you handle it?

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Baseball committee? Sign me up. But football? No way. Put someone else in charge, someone who cares about it. It’s only logical.

The November elections, though, have done the equivalent of putting me in charge of football.
Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) is the new chair of the House Committee on Science. With ties to ties to big oil, a stated intention to interrogate climate scientists, and a disappointing voting record, Hall stands in stark contrast to the previous chair, Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN), who had chaired the committee since 2007..

In the previous congress, Gordon introduced legislation to ensure long-term research and development, authorize the America COMPETES Act, encourage development of electric vehicles. Not a bad pedigree. Hall, on the other hand, introduced legislation in the 111th congress to demonize climate scientists and stifle the innovation clause of the America COMPETES Act. I’m sure that, like anyone, he will take his new role seriously. But a work ethic can take you only so far when you don’t have a true passion for the task.

Gordon, who has retired from Congress, is not a scientist himself. But his passion for our field came through in his votes and in his voice. I attended a talk by Rep. Gordon in 2009 at the AAAS Public Policy Forum, where he encouraged the scientists and engineers in attendance to “put a face on science.” That’s how we spur public support for what we do: Talk about what we do, how it helps others, and how it affects the country. Gordon wanted us to sell our work so he could support science even more effectively.

This issue is not about party or politics (in fact, Hall himself was a registered Democrat until 2004). No, it’s about championing science, and it’s about being an enthusiastic advocate for scientists. Hall is no champion. Hall is me, in charge of football.

So what can we do about it? Well, as Gordon says, putting a face on science helps. I hope we can all talk a bit more about what we do. Making science and technology accessible to all helps make our case in a broad way. Nothing can substitute for public support.

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• Come prepared. You want to hit the ground running, so learn a bit on your own before you get there. Look around for books, articles, and blogs on your new employer (or your new industry). Ask your future boss to recommend more.
• First day? Show up on time. Notice I say “on time,” not “early.” You might be inclined to arrive ahead of schedule, but you’ll only throw off the first-day schedule of HR, office tour, and paperwork. Speaking of paperwork, bring everything with you they’ll need to process your employment (ID and social security card), payment (blank check), and ID badge (big smile). Dress a little more nicely than you would for a normal workday. If it’s a casual office, you can break out the patched jeans tomorrow.
• Get a mentor. If your company has an official mentorship program, take advantage of it. If not, make your own: Find someone you can take to lunch and coffee and ask all the dumb and gossipy questions you want, someone who will answer you honestly and discreetly. I recommend you find a mentor outside your department—best to keep the hairy stuff away from the people you work closely with.
• Don’t talk too much. We’ve all been in meetings with that one person who won’t shut up: he talks when he has nothing substantive to add and asks questions to show how smart he is. Don’t be that person. There’s a temptation, when you’re new, to show that you can contribute, but if you’re not actually contributing, keep quiet.
• Be eager, but not too eager. This is a tough one. You want to take on every project that comes your way at first. You don’t have to, and you shouldn’t. If you overextend yourself, you’ll wind up behind and overwhelmed. Better to go smaller at first, set reasonable expectations and then exceed them.

How many jobs have you had? What do you do when you start a new job? Do you have any tips to add?

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