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US science adviser, other top officials to speak at April 30-May 1 AAAS S&T Forum

The White House science adviser, the Canadian science minister and leading House science committee members are among the speakers at the 34th annual Forum on Science and Technology Policy of the American Assocication for the Advancement of Science. The AAAS Forum convenes in Washington, D.C., on Thursday April 30 and Friday May 1.

White House Science Adviser John P. Holdren will deliver the keynote address at 8:30 a.m. on April 30 during a session on the U.S. research and development budget and related policy for fiscal year 2010. It will be among his first detailed public policy statements since being confirmed March 19 as President Barack Obama's science adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), the chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology, also will participate in the opening session on the R&D budget.

Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, will be the breakfast speaker on Friday May 1.

Gary Goodyear, Canada's minister of state for science and technology, will deliver an invited address at 9:00 a.m. on May 1 on the role of science and technology in his nation's economic action plan.

The AAAS Forum is the premier venue for discussion of current issues in world science and technology policy, and that's reflected in this year's agenda. About 500 participants are expected for the event, which will be held at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, 13th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

The complete agenda for the Forum is available at: http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/forum.htm.

"This year is unique in the 34-year history of the Forum," said Albert H. Teich, director of science and policy programs at AAAS. "The nation and world face daunting challenges on several fronts, including the economic crisis and global climate change. Science and technology are central to these and the other top priorities of the Obama Administration, and the administration appears eager to make use of the best science and science policy in addressing these priorities."

Holdren served as AAAS president from February 2006 through February 2007, and as chairman of the AAAS Board of Directors for a year after that. He was chair of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs executive committee when the organization won its Nobel Peace Prize in 1995, and was chosen by his colleagues to give the acceptance speech.

Current AAAS President Peter Agre, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2003, also will speak at the Forum and will serve as moderator of the R&D panel on the first morning. Agre is director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute.

Physicist Richard L. Garwin, an adviser to U.S. presidents since Dwight Eisenhower and an influential proponent of reduced global nuclear arsenals, will deliver the annual William D. Carey Lecture at 5:45 p.m. on April 30. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, was started in 1989 and named for the late AAAS executive officer. The selected lecturers are individuals who exemplify Carey's leadership in articulating public policy issues.

The agenda for the two-day Forum also includes:

• A luncheon address on April 30 by MIT President Susan Hockfield on "Converging Questions, Emerging Answers: The Next Innovation Revolution."

• Sessions April 30 on the potential health impacts of climate change; global strategies for R&D investment by government and industry; and approaches to governing and regulating powerful emerging technologies in manufacturing, computing, health, and other fields.

• A May 1 morning session on the roles of science and technology in the global economic recovery and future growth, featuring top officials from the World Bank, Japan's Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, and the U.K.'s Royal Society.

• A May 1 afternoon panel discussion on the future of science journalism, featuring Chris Mooney, author of the upcoming book "Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future."

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science (www.sciencemag.org). AAAS was founded in 1848, and has 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The nonprofit AAAS (www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education and more. For the latest research news, log on to EurekAlert!, www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.

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