A Social Research Conference  The New School, February 9 and 10, 2006 Contact Register Agenda Overview Speakers Links Hotels

Eric Cohen is the Director of the Biotechnology and American Democracy program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.  He is also the editor of The New Atlantis, the Center's journal about the ethical, political, and social implications of technological advancement.

Rita Colwell is Chairman of Canon U.S. Life Sciences, Inc.  She also serves as Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, and on the faculty of The John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  Dr. Colwell was the 11th Director (and the first woman director) of the National Science Foundation, an independent agency of the federal government that provides support for research and education in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. 

Paul Ehrlich is President of the Center for Conservation Biology and the Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford University.  Dr. Ehrlich is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

M. Joycelyn Elders is Professor Emeritus at the University of Arkansas School of Medicine and remains active in public health education.  She retired from regular teaching duties in 1998 and continues to speak widely and participate in several national advisory committees.  In 1993, Dr. Elders was appointed U.S. Surgeon General by President Clinton, and was the first women to hold that post.     

Ira Flatow is a veteran NPR science correspondent and award-winning TV journalist. He is the host of Talk of The Nation: Science Friday. Flatow anchors the show each Friday, bringing radio and Internet listeners worldwide a lively, informative discussion on science, technology, health, space, and the environment. He is also founder and president of Talking Science, a non-profit company dedicated to creating radio, TV, and Internet projects that make science user friendly.

Robert George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.  Dr. George is a member of the President's Council on Bioethics and formerly served as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights.  He was a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award.

Paul Gilman is the Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Center for Advanced Studies, a position he assumed upon stepping down from his post as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Assistant Administrator for the Office of Research and Development.  In 2002 Dr. Gilman was appointed U.S. EPA Science Advisor, where he worked across the agency to ensure that the highest quality science was better integrated into the EPA’s programs, policies and decisions.  

Bernard Goldstein is a Professor and former Dean of the University of  Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH). Dr. Goldstein is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, vice president of the Paris-based Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment, and a consultant to the World Health Organization and to the United Nations Environmental Program. He is also a member of the executive committee of the Association of Schools of Public Health.

David Goldston is Chief of Staff of the House Committee on Science.  As staff director, he oversees a committee with jurisdiction over most of the federal civilian research and development budget, including programs run by NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Kurt Gottfried is Professor Emeritus of Physics at Cornell University and Co-founder and Chair of the Union of Concerned Scientists.  Dr. Gottfried has served on the senior staff of the European Center for Nuclear Research in Geneva and is a former chair of the Division of Particles and Fields of the American Physical Society.  He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations.

James Hansen is Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), a laboratory of the Earth-Sun Exploration Division of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and a unit of the Columbia University Earth Institute. Dr. Hansen’s planetary research focuses on understanding the climate change on earth that will result from anthropogenic changes of the atmospheric composition. He is interested in radioactive transfer in planetary atmospheres, particularly interpreting remote sounding of the earth's atmosphere and surface from satellites.

Steven Hayward is the F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a Senior Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, and former Henry Salvatori Fellow and Bradley Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.  Dr. Hayward studies the environment, law, political economy, and the presidency. He is author of the annual Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, published jointly by the American Enterprise Institute and the Pacific Research Institute. Dr. Hayward writes AEI's Environmental Policy Outlook and also recently authored The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964-1980.   

Martin Hoffert is Professor Emeritus of Physics at New York University.  His research focuses on global environmental change, geophysical fluid dynamics, oceanography, biogeochemical cycles, and alternate energy technology.  Dr. Hoffert is a renowned advocate for the adoption of alternative energy sources to stave off ill effects of global climate change.

Rush Holt is a U.S. Congress Representative from New Jersey. Representative Holt serves on two committees, including the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  Holt is the only scientist and only Member from the New Jersey delegation to sit on the Intelligence Committee, where he serves as the ranking minority member on the Intelligence Policy subcommittee. He is also on temporary leave from a third committee, the House Committee on Resources. Holt has also held positions as a teacher, Congressional Science Fellow, and arms control expert at the U.S. State Department where he monitored the nuclear programs of countries such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union. 

Gerald Holton is the Mallinckrodt Research Professor of Physics and Research Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University.  His chief interests are in the history and philosophy of science and in the physics of matter at high pressure.  Dr. Holton is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a  Life Honorary Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, and Fellow of several Learned Societies in Europe.  Founding editor of the quarterly journal Daedalus, and founder of Science, Society, & Human Values, he is also on the editorial committee of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein.

William B. Hurlbut is a Physician and Consulting Professor in the Program in Human Biology at Stanford University. Additionally, Dr. Hurlbut currently serves on the President¹s Council on Bioethics.  His primary areas of interest involve the ethical issues associated with advancing biomedical technology, the biological basis of moral awareness, and studies in the integration of theology and philosophy of biology.

Bob Kerrey is the President of The New School. Kerrey formerly represented the State of Nebraska in the United States Senate for twelve years. Before that he served as Nebraska’s governor for four years. Bob Kerrey stressed the need to build stronger communities and partnered with community leaders to build health care, child care, recreational, environmental, educational, and other projects. He became an expert in U.S. intelligence, serving for eight years on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He immersed himself in the details of communication technologies and led the post-Aldrich Ames reforms of the federal intelligence agencies. In May 2005 Bob Kerrey received the Robert L. Haig Award for Distinguished Public Service from the New York State Bar Association, and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from New York Law School.

Henry Kelly is President of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).  Prior to joining the FAS, Dr. Kelly served as Assistant Director for Technology in the Office of Science and Technology at the White House, where he helped negotiate and implement administration research partnerships in energy and the environment, information technology, and learning technology.  Before his tenure at the White House, Dr. Kelly was Senior Associate at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Assistant Director for the Solar Energy Research Institute, and worked on the staff of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.  

Daniel Kevles is the Stanley Woodward Professor of History, Professor of American Studies, and of Law (adjunct) at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Yale University.  Dr. Kevles is also Chair of the Program in the History of Medicine and Science.  His teaching areas are the history of modern science, including genetics, physics, and science in American society.

Neal Lane is the Malcolm Gillis University Professor at Rice University.  He also holds appointments as Senior Fellow of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, where he is engaged in matters of science and technology policy, and in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.  Dr. Lane formerly served in the federal government as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and as Director of the National Science Foundation and member (ex officio) of the National Science Board.

William Martin is Chairman of the United States Department of Energy's  Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee, an independent panel that provides advice on the direction of the department's nuclear program.  Martin, a leading U.S. energy economist, is the founder and Chairman of Washington Policy and Analysis. He served as Deputy Secretary of Energy and Executive Secretary of the National Security Council under President Reagan.

Michael Oppenheimer is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University.  He is the current Director of the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow WilsonSchool and Faculty Associate of the Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences Program at Princeton Environmental Institute, and the Center of International Studies.  Dr. Oppenheimer joined the Princeton faculty after more than two decades with Environmental Defense, a non-governmental, environmental organization, where he served as its Chief Scientist and Manager of the Global and Regional Atmosphere Program.  Joined by some of his colleagues, Dr. Oppenheimer organized two workshops in the late 1980s under the auspices of the United Nations that helped precipitate the negotiations that resulted in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (signed at the 1992 Earth Summit) and the Kyoto Protocol. He is also a co-founder of the Climate Action Network. 

Rick Piltz is a former Senior Associate of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program Office.  He worked for ten years with this U.S. federal program, which coordinates global climate change research for NASA, the U.S. EPA, the National Science Foundation, and other federal agencies.  Piltz’s current work focuses on the politicization of climate change research and policy making.        

Allan Rosenfield is the DeLamar Professor of Public Health and Dean of the School of Public Health at Columbia University.  Dr. Rosenfield is Chair of the New York State Department of Health AIDS Advisory Council and Chair of amFAR's Public Policy Committee.  He also serves on the boards of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Ellis Rubinstein is President and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences.  He was the Editor of Science magazine from 1993-2002, having previously been News Editor and Deputy Editor for that publication. Prior to Science, Mr. Rubinstein was Editor of The Scientist and a Senior Editor at Newsweek.  He also served as Managing Editor of Science 86 and IEEE Spectrum.  During his 3 decades as a journalist and editor, he was thrice honored by National Magazine Awards. 

John S. Santelli is professor and chairman of the Heilbrum Department of Population and Family Health in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.  A national leader in insuring that adolescents are appropriately included in health research, Dr. Santelli has conducted studies on HIV/ STD risk behaviors, programs to prevent STD /HIV/unintended pregnancy among adolescents and women, school-based health centers, clinical preventive services, and research ethics. Prior to joining the Mailman School faculty, he was the Chief of the Applied Sciences Branch in the Division of Reproductive Health at U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Philip Smith is a partner with McGeary and Smith, science policy consultancy. He is currently writing a book on changing relationships between science and government as the national research enterprise restructures itself to cope with constrained budgets and to address future challenges. For four decades, Dr. Smith has been involved in government support of research and development and science and technology policy. He is former Executive Officer of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the National Research Council (NRC). Dr. Smith is also former Chief of the General Science Branch, Office of Management and Budget, NSF director and Science and Technology adviser to Presidents Nixon and Ford.

Albert Teich is director of Science and Policy Programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  He is responsible for the Association’s activities in science and technology policy and serves as a key spokesman on science policy issues.  Dr. Teich also serves as director of the AAAS Archives.  He is former manager of the R&D Budget and Policy Project and former head of the Office of Public Sector Programs.  Prior to joining AAAS, Dr. Teich taught science and technology policy at George Washington University and spent several years in teaching, research and administrative positions at the State University of New York and the Syracuse University Research Corporation, now the Syracuse Research Corporation.

Ruth Wooden is President of Public Agenda, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization that aims to help both American leaders understand the public's point of view, and citizens to understand critical policy issues.  Wooden also serves on the Boards of U.S. Trust Company, Research!America, Phoenix House Foundation, Demos, and Civic Ventures, San Francisco.