Physics (Internal)

Science on the National Agenda: The Road Back

This event is part of the Physics Department Colloquia Series.

Since the end of World War II, the United States has been the engine of the world’s economy, and innovation and discovery have been the principal drivers. But for the last two decades, American investment in science research and education has been waning. Today, our nation faces a growing challenge from rapidly growing economies in Asia and other parts of the world. As Thomas Friedman noted in his best selling book, The World Is Flat, globalization is here to stay. Policy makers and elected officials have a short time to make decisions that will America to compete on the new playing field. Putting science back on the national agenda is key to any success. We will look at some of the critical benchmarks of innovation and follow the recent journey in Washington that led to the President’s embrace of the American Competitiveness Initiative. We will also examine the political landscape, the public attitudes that contribute to political decision-making and the reactions of the scientific community that will largely determine whether the initiative will succeed in the long term.

Biography

Michael S. Lubell is Professor of Physics Department at the City College of the City University of New York (CCNY) and the Director of Public Affairs of The American Physical Society (APS). Dr. Lubell earned his B.A. (1963) from Columbia University, and his M.S. (1965) and Ph.D. (1969) from Yale University. He served on the faculty of Yale from 1971 to 1980 before joining the Physics Department at CCNY in 1980, where he was Department Chair from 1999 to 2005. He has held fellowships from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He has also held concurrent positions Brookhaven National Laboratory, the University of Texas-Austin the Santa Barbara Institute of Theoretical Physics and Universität Bielefeld. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and his biography appears in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World.

Dr. Lubell’s publications comprise more than 100 articles and 85 conference abstracts in scientific journals and books covering subjects in the fields of high-energy physics, nuclear physics, atomic, molecular and optical (AMO) physics, and science policy. His use of polarized electrons to probe fundamental processes in atoms, nuclei and nucleons is internationally known. His research interests now center on AMO studies of quantum chaos and simple molecular systems. He has delivered more than 150 invited lectures and has appeared on radio and TV in North America and Europe. He is one of the experts most frequently quoted by the national and scientific media on public policy issues. He is also credited as being one of the pioneers of science lobbying in Washington and is regarded as one of its most effective practitioners. He has served on many scientific advisory committees inside and outside government. Dr. Lubell has also been a newspaper columnist and presently writes a bimonthly opinion piece, "Inside the Beltway," for APS News, which has a circulation of 45,000. He has been active in local, state and national politics for more than forty years and has served as an advisor to several members of Congress.