Senator Obama Picks Science Advisors

On 9/17, Senator Obama announced his team of science advisors–interesting that 4 out of the 5 picked come from Life Sciences. Martin Apple, President of the Council of Science Society Presidents, spoke to Brandon Keim at Wired Science and he feels that this makes his team a little too narrow. However, he also states that “He’s certainly the kind of person who tends to build larger consultation groups,” and he adds “All of [the advisors] have networks of people who would be able to put high-quality appointments together.”

 

The team:

 

Harold Varmus:

• President of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Nobel Prize in 1989 for breakthroughs in cancer genetics
• He directed the National Institutes of Health and while under him, the agency’s budget doubled
• Co-founded the Public Library of Science
• Chairs the scientific board of Grand Challenges in Global Health
• Was an advisor to the now-defunct Campaign to Defend the Constitution, launched to combat the political influence of the religious right

 

Gilbert Omenn:

• Professor of internal medicine, human genetics and public health at the University of Michigan
• Former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; during his tenure he denounced anti-evolution education laws
• Director of Amgen, a biotechnology company
• Served in the Office of Science and Technology Policy under President Carter

 

Peter Agre:

• Director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute
• Won a Nobel Prize in 2003 for discovering proteins that move water through cell membranes–pledged to use the prize money to defend scientific freedom from the restrictions of the war on terror
• Has been sharply critical of President Bush’s climate change policies
• Founded Scientists and Engineers for America, a non-partisan science advocacy group
• He wants more scientists to run for public office

 

Don Lamb:

• A University of Chicago astrophysicist and expert in stellar evolution
• Helped found the Sloan Digital Sky Survey–”the most ambitious astronomical survey ever undertaken”
• Mission Scientist on NASA’s High-Energy Transient Explorer
• Argued against the privatization of commercial space flight

 

Sharon Long:

• A member of the leadership council of the National Academy of Sciences
• Leading researcher on the symbiosis of soil bacteria with alfalfa
• Former dean of Stanford University’s School of Humanities & Science
• Resigned last year from the Board of Directors of Monsanto, an agricultural biotechnology corporation
• Former MacArthur Fellow

Senator McCain has ignored requests to identify his science advisors.