The Science Policy IRL series pulls back the curtain on who does what in science policy and how they shaped their career path. In previous episodes we’ve looked at the cosmology of science policy through the eyes of people who work at federal agencies and the National Academies, but this time we are exploring think tanks. 

Walter Valdivia describes how a chance encounter while he was getting a PhD in public policy at Arizona State University led him into science policy. Since then he’s worked at think tanks including Brookings and the Mercatus Center and is now at the Science and Technology Policy Institute, which does research for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In this episode, we’ll talk to Walter about what think tanks do in the policy world and how policy sometimes creates inherent paradoxes. 

Resources: 

Visit the Institute for Defense Analysis’ Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) to learn more about Walter’s current work. 

Check out the book, Between Politics and Science by David Guston, to see what inspired Walter’s career in science policy. Here is the first chapter.

Visit the Center for Nanotechnology in Society’s website. 

Read Walter and David Guston’s paper, “Responsible innovation: A primer for policymakers.”

Read “Is Patent Protection Industrial Policy?” to learn more about policy paradoxes. 

Check out The Honest Broker by Roger Pielke, Jr. to learn more about the role of impartial expertise. 

Interested in learning more about Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs)? Read this primer.