BY KIRA T. LAWRENCE

As a climate scientist, I’ve watched in disbelief as decades of denial and can-kicking have resulted in the leading edge of the climate crisis wreaking havoc across the world. For years, I have felt like I’ve been aboard the carbon train with the rest of humanity, telling passengers to brace for impact. I have long hoped that the urgent message we were sharing in our classrooms, scientific presentations, and publications would be heard, heeded, and acted upon by our government, but for the most part that hasn’t happened. This spring, I finally decided to try a new approach by applying my expertise to science policy in my home state of New Jersey.

As the pandemic has laid bare, science-based decision-making by governments yields better outcomes for society. However, even though many of the most pressing issues of our time require scientific expertise to address them effectively, there are few elected officials with any formal scientific training. Instead of shouting in frustration at our computer screens as government officials flout scientific evidence, STEM faculty should promote the health of our society by serving as federal or state science and policy fellows.

This year, while on sabbatical, I am serving as an Eagleton Science and Politics Fellow within the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU), the agency that oversees all of the regulated utilities in the state. That might sound like a strange place to combat climate change, but the NJBPU’s Division of Clean Energy is where many of New Jersey’s ambitious clean-energy goals are being implemented. The team I joined is quite literally writing the rules for how the clean-energy transition in New Jersey will be realized.

Some might imagine days filled with pushing useless paperwork in the company of uninspired government employees. Instead, my experience with NJBPU has rejuvenated my perception of civil service. I’ve joined a skilled and highly motivated team of people who are diligently advancing a huge portfolio of responsibilities. My new colleagues are always working up against a never-ending list of deadlines. It’s inspiring that they seem undaunted by this. My experience has been a lot like graduate school in that the learning curve is steep, but as I see the plateau on the horizon, I’ve been able to make meaningful contributions. The knowledge I have acquired has built a foundation for more impactful opportunities in the future both for society and for my students.

This past fall, I cheered as I stood in my home office listening to the live webcast of the NJBPU meeting in which the board approved the offshore wind strategic plan and New Jersey’s second solicitation for proposals for offshore wind development. As a member of NJBPU’s offshore wind team, I felt a sense of both pride and accomplishment in a way that I hadn’t anticipated.

While neither of those events provide much of a brake on the global carbon train, they will play a substantial role in slowing New Jersey’s carbon train. Importantly, states like New Jersey are building critical models for others to follow as the climate crisis deepens. After years of feeling like the warnings of my scientific community have been ignored by policy-makers, it is deeply rewarding to be living in and working for a state in which the government is actively working to achieve its ambitious goal of 100 percent clean energy by 2050.

My call to action is for more STEM faculty to serve as policy fellows. To do so demands a shift in perspective and values by both faculty and the institutions where they work. Policy fellowships provide STEM faculty with an opportunity to grow their teaching repertoire. The skills they acquire can enable institutions to expand their course offerings in interdisciplinary programs that are burgeoning areas of study, including environmental science and studies, public health, and data science. These faculty will also almost certainly have engaged in public scholarship and developed skills—from report writing to strategic planning—that both serve the public good and reach a broader audience than the peer-reviewed scholarly products that are the typical currency of academia.

We academics must see ourselves as integral players in building a more interconnected and resilient society. Our institutions must embrace this chance to lead by building a more flexible model of faculty contributions that rewards faculty for using their expertise in novel ways to directly support better policy making. We cannot sit this one out. The time for higher educational institutions and our faculty to step up is now. Our society and our students are counting on us.

Kira T. Lawrence is John H. Markle Professor and chair of the Lafayette College Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences. She is currently an Eagleton Science and Politics Fellow at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. As part of the Fellowship, Lawrence is serving as an in-house science aide with the Board of Public Utilities Division of Clean Energy in the state of New Jersey.