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The Graduate School Medal

MELANIE ROBERTS
Interdisciplinary Program in Neurobiology and Behavior

 Melanie Roberts is a PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Neurobiology and Behavior.  She is conducting research as part of a team that is exploring the roles of nuclear hormone receptors in the retina of the human eye.  On the UW campus she was instrumental in founding the Forum on Science Ethics and Policy to increase dialogue among scientists, policy makers, and the general public about the role of science in society.  FOSEP is addressing such matters as stem cell research, climate change, and genetically modified foods.

A portion of Ms. Roberts' personal statement:

“One reason I started FOSEP was that, when I spoke about stem cell policy with scientists, the community, or policy makers, I found that we were all on different pages.  The public and policy makers don’t seem to have the tools that they need to make policy decisions involving science.  Scientists generally do not interact with the public or policy makers, even though we depend on those groups to fund our research.  I found that although most non-scientists are very interested in learning about science, they didn’t know how to evaluate scientific findings. . . . Even as a graduate student, I felt that I was making a tangible and important contribution to policy, and I believe that scientists should be more involved in informing policy.  Science policy decisions, however, also require an understanding of ethical, economic, historical, and political factors.  With experts in all of these areas, members of our community can learn from one another and together we can intelligently analyze complicated policy issues that affect all of us.

 The goals of FOSEP are to 1) Provide a forum for interaction between scholars from multiple disciplines and institutions to discuss the role of science in society; 2) Increase public interest and knowledge about the process of science and how the products of science affect society; and 3) Help to inform policy decisions that affect how science is regulated and how our scientific findings are used to benefit society.  We hope to “arm” scientists and others with the tools to participate in debates on timely topics such as stem cell research ad global warming.”

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