The 2017 Wisconsin Science Festival was held from November 2nd to the 5th at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. As part of this year’s program, CaSP was the proud organizer of the Making a Difference: Science Policy for Scientists (and Those Interested in Science) Mini-Symposium. The forum was broken into three sections (2 panel discussions and 2 concurrent breakout sessions) and featured eight distinguished people from various sectors of science policy (For more information on our panelist, please see our previous blog post.
The event attracted over 100 attendees and the discussions focused around a number of topics such as the differences between Science for Policy and Policy for Science, effective advocacy with policy makers, career avenues for people interested in policy making, as well as ways in which scientists can get involved (AAAS fellowships and internships, interning in offices of lawmakers, participating in Congressional Visit Days, etc.). We were also honored to have the presence of State Senator Mark Miller (WI-16, Monona), who echoed many of the sentiments of the panelists.
CaSP would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank our panelist for sharing their experiences and encouraging statements. We would also like to thank all of the attendees and hope that everyone was able to learn useful information and is energized to take action.