Science and Technology Policy at GW: a History

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY AT GW

A HISTORY

There is a long history of research and teaching in science and technology policy at The George Washington University (GW). What has evolved over more than 50 years of operation is a world-known graduate teaching program in S&T policy. Today, that program offers a Masters of Arts in International Science and Technology Policy as well as independent graduate certificates in International S&T Policy and Nuclear Policy Studies. It further serves as a field of concentration for other graduate programs, notably the S&T Public Policy PhD program at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. The teaching program is an integral part of the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy (IISTP), which conducts research projects on various aspects of S&T policy, organizes seminars and symposia, and hosts visitors from around the world. Along with its sister organization, the Space Policy Institute (SPI), IISTP also directs the graduate program. This unique teaching and research triangle developed over the decades with the help of many talented people.

The first program that specifically focused on S&T policy at GW was the Program of Policy Studies in Science and Technology (PPST); established in 1966. This initiative was a result of a generous grant to GW from NASA. The grant came courtesy of James Webb, then NASA Administrator. Mr. Webb wanted to use some of the massive funding for the Apollo lunar landing program to support university research and teaching, and so he made awards to many U.S. schools. Webb also recognized that GW (at the time) was not strong in science or engineering, so he decided that GW should focus on policy research. Given NASA’s sponsorship, space policy was from the start a major research focus of PPST and its successor organizations. Webb did not want PPST to be part of a single school or department, so a condition of the award was that the program be university-wide and be directed by a GW vice-president. The original PPST offices were on the top floor of the now replaced Henry Building at 2100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW; most of the building housed the staff of the National Academy of Sciences.

The first director of the PPST was Louis Mayo, formerly Dean of the GW Graduate School of Law. There were sufficient NASA funds in the early years to support a staff of 20-25 people, both GW faculty members and non-faculty researchers. John Logsdon joined the PPST research staff in 1968; he was at that point an assistant professor of political science at Catholic University.

At the time, GW had a School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) that offered both undergraduate and graduate degrees in public policy and international affairs. In 1969, GW hired a political scientist named Burt Sapin as the new dean of SPIA. Logsdon and his colleague at PPST John Hanessian convinced Sapin that a new graduate teaching program in science and technology policy (STPP) was a logical complement to the ongoing research program and an innovative addition to the SPIA offerings. Sapin and higher GW authorities agreed, and the STPP program was established as of September 1970. Two tenure-track faculty positions were allocated to the new program. Hanessian became the program’s first director and Logsdon moved from Catholic University to GW to become the program’s second faculty member. Five students enrolled in the first STPP cohort in September 1970.

Hanessian had first become involved in science and technology policy in the late-1950s as a staff member at the National Academy of Sciences during the International Geophysical Year. After spending several years at various universities after IGY ended, he joined PPST soon after it was established. After becoming a GW faculty member in 1970, in order to qualify for tenure, he had to complete and defend his dissertation in international law at the University of Cambridge in the UK. He was not able to meet that requirement and left GW in 1973 to work for the National Science Foundation. He was on NSF business when he died in an airplane accident in France in 1974.

By default, Logsdon became the STPP director. To fill the second faculty slot, the university recruited a new assistant professor, Henry Nau, who came to GW in 1973. At that point, his specialization was the international political dimensions of nuclear energy. Nau soon broadened his focus to international affairs and U.S. foreign policy overall, and by the mid-1970s was no longer involved in STPP. To replace him, GW recruited Al Teich, a generalist in science and technology policy.

By this time, PPST had relocated to the top floor of the new Gelman Library, and the STPP program set up shop in a nearby office cluster. The NASA grant had expired and much of the PPST work during the 1970s contributed to the founding of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. Overall funding for the program decreased and the staff began to shrink.

Teich left GW in 1980 to go to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where he would eventually become director of science and technology programs. After retiring from AAAS in 2011, he returned to GW as a Research Professor of Science, Technology, and International Affairs.

During the 1970s, STPP attracted a small but select group of degree candidates. In 1976, for example, there were 16 recipients of the STPP degree. SPIA and GW overall wanted to keep this successful program going so it authorized a tenure-line faculty search for Teich’s replacement. That person turned out to be Robert Rycroft, a recent graduate of the University of Oklahoma and a specialist in energy and environmental policy. Rycroft joined STPP in 1981. He was a long-time faculty member and only left STPP in 2015 because of declining health. Bob was a dedicated teacher and mentor to many students.

There were major changes in 1983. Louis Mayo, then PPST direct, became ill and was unable to continue. Separately but at the same time, the university academic leaders, including President Lloyd Elliott, decided to remove the public policy portfolio from SPIA and refocus the school solely on international affairs. The name of PPST changed to the Center for International Science and Technology Policy (CISTP) and the unit became a part of the new international affairs school, rather than remaining a university-wide organization. Logsdon became CISTP director and the director of the STPP program—positions he would hold for many years. In 1988, when Lloyd Elliott retired as GW president after 23 years in that position, the GW Trustees renamed SPIA the Elliott School of International Affairs.

From its origins as a recipient of NASA financial support, to the concentration on space issues in Logsdon’s teaching and research, space policy had always been a research and teaching focus of what was by now CISTP. After the space shuttle Challenger accident in January 1986, there was discussion within the Washington space community about the need for an independent “think tank” dealing with space issues. It occurred to Logsdon that what was already being done at CISTP was quite similar to what was being discussed. He came up with the idea of creating a separate entity within CISTP that would focus on space issues; this was basically a rebranding of CISTP’s space-related teaching and research activities. The Elliott School dean, by now Maurice “Mickey” East, agreed and recommended to university leaders that a new Space Policy Institute (SPI) be separately chartered as a sub-element of CISTP. This step, which became effective in 1987, allowed students the unique opportunity to focus their graduate studies on space issues within their STPP degree program.

In 1990, as student interest in studying science, technology, and space policy continued GW allocated a third tenure-track faculty position to the STPP program. Nicholas Vonortas, an economist and a recent graduate of New York University, was recruited to fill that position. Vonortas joined the faculty in September 1990 bringing with him a specialization in the economics of technological change. He has since done several turns as both director of the STPP program and of CISTP and their successors.

Marcel C. LaFolette, a student of the scientific process and of science communication, joined the team as Research Associate Professor of Science and Technology Policy at CISTP from the late-1980s until the early-1990s. Henry Hertzfeld, an economist and lawyer, came to SPI in 1992 after working at the Department of Commerce, NASA, the National Science Foundation, and as an independent consultant. Ray Williamson joined SPI in 1995 from the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. Both Henry and Ray carried the title Research Professor of Space Policy and International Affairs, indicating that most of their financial support came from grants and contracts and that they were not in a tenure-track position. Ray left GW to become the first executive director of the Secure World Foundation in 2007; Henry remains as a member of the SPI faculty, teaching courses in both space law and space economics. Peter Hays has served for many years as an adjunct professor of international affairs, teaching a yearly Space and National Security course for the STPP program. By this time, the teaching program together with CISTP and SPI had moved into new Elliott School offices in Stuart Hall, 2013 G Street NW.

In the early 2000s, the STPP program was rebranded the International Science and Technology (ISTP) program. More changes were to come. Henry Farrell became a fourth tenure-track faculty member of the program in 2004, specializing in information technology. Farrell chose to base himself in the political science department rather than in the ISTP program offices and as a result was not well integrated with the day-by-day operations of the program. He left GW in 2020 to join the faculty of Johns Hopkins University.

A long tradition at CISTP/SPI has been hosting, on a short-term or continuing basis, both senior experts in science, technology, and space policy and younger scholars who wanted to use GW as the base for their activities in Washington. There are too many individuals who spent a year or less at CISTP to list in this brief account. Individuals who spent more than a year with us include:

• Herman Pollack was director of the State Department’s Bureau of International Scientific and Technological Affairs before coming to PPST in 1974; he retired in 1988.
• Jeffrey Rosendhal joined SPI in January 1988 on a two-year detail from NASA, where he had been associate administrator (science).
• Pascale Ehrenfreund, an astrobiologist by training, became research professor of space policy and international affairs in 2007. She has maintained that title and an office at GW while serving as head of the Austrian Science Fund and then as Executive Director of the German Aerospace Center. She is currently president of both the International Space University and the International Astronautical Federation.
• Colleen Hartman joined SPI as a research professor of space policy and international affairs also in 2007. She was on leave from NASA, where she had spent 27 years working on various space science projects and where she eventually served as director of planetary science.

Harry Harding became Elliott School dean in 1995; he provided continuing support to the graduate program. Vonortas soon took over as director of CISTP and the graduate program while Logsdon focused on managing SPI. In 2003, the Elliott School moved into new offices; this time in a newly constructed classroom, office, and dormitory building at 1957 E Street NW. The founder of GW’s University Honors program, David Alan Grier joined the graduate program in 2003 as associate professor of computer science and international affairs. Grier was a specialist in globalization and international standardization, scientific institutions, and the history of science. While still affiliated with the program, he also served terms as Associate Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and of the Elliott School. In the latter role he worked with the new Elliott School dean Michael Brown, who replaced Harry Harding in 2005.

After 38 years on the active GW faculty, Logsdon became professor emeritus in 2008. Although he no longer taught classes, he stayed active with SPI; between 2010 and 2019, he published three award-winning books on presidential decisions that have shaped the U.S. space program. His replacement as director of SPI was Professor of the Practice of International Affairs Scott Pace, who had spent the preceding 25 years in Washington working in a mixture of government and think tank positions, including tours at the Commerce Department, NASA, RAND, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Pace also received a secondary appointment in the GW Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. While Vonortas conducted research overseas—notably in Brazil—from 2012 to 2015, Pace served as the director of CISTP while also managing the Master of Arts program in International Science and Technology Policy.

In 2015, Allison Macfarlane joined the faculty as professor of science policy and international affairs. A specialist in environmental and security issues related to nuclear energy, Macfarlane was also a former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2012 to 2014. Macfarlane became the director of CISTP and the MA program. During her tenure, she created a new certificate program in nuclear policy studies. That same year, the Elliott School welcomed a new Dean, Reuben Brigety.

In 2016, the name of the Center for International Science and Technology Policy changed to the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy (IISTP). That year also saw Nina Kelsey, who specializes in environmental policy and international negotiations, join the faculty as an assistant professor of public policy and international affairs. Sharon Squassoni, an expert in nuclear energy and nuclear arms control, joined IISTP in 2018 as a research professor.

In 2017, Pace took a three and a half year leave of absence to serve as the Executive Secretary of the National Space Council at the White House. While he was on leave, Henry Hertzfeld served as the acting director of the Space Policy Institute. In 2020, Macfarlane left GW to take a position at the University of British Columbia and Vonortas returned to the directorship of both IISTP and ISTP. Doug Shaw, an expert in nuclear security who had previously served as Associate Dean of the Elliott School, returned to GW as a Research Professor at IISTP in 2020.

In 2021, Pace rejoined GW and the Space Policy Institute, resuming his role as SPI director in June. After the departure of Reuben Brigety in 2020, Alyssa Ayres arrived at Elliott in 2021 as the new dean. With Ayres’ approval, ISTP conducted a successful search for a new tenure-track faculty member in space policy, to replace John Logsdon’s long-vacant position. In 2021, Aaron Bateman, an expert space technology and national security affairs, became the latest ISTP/SPI faculty addition. He joins the team in August as an assistant professor of history and international affairs.

This is only the briefest thumbnail sketch of the key personnel who have been part of a science and technology policy community at GW for the past 50 years. Faculty and students, administrators and visiting scholars, too numerous to count have contributed to scholarship, teaching, and community building across a diverse range of fields—from space and nuclear power, to technical innovation and the environment. Many have advanced to very senior positions in S&T in the United States and the large number of international students and visiting scholars have similarly taken leadership positions in their home countries.

After five decades however, we are still at the beginning, still learning, and still building the foundation for the next 50 years.