“I am in the middle of a steep learning curve. My days are full,” says James Dufty, the American Institute of Physics’ eighth State Department fellow.
Dufty is working for a year in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, where he serves as a liaison between the US government and the natural sciences and social and human sciences sectors of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). A theoretical physicist who has been on the faculty of the University of Florida for 35 years, Dufty says he chose the bureau because “it was an opportunity to come in where there was a vacuum. I have come to an office where I am the only person with a science background.”
UNESCO is in the process of reviewing its two science sectors and drafting a strategy for the next six years. One aim is to organize the science sectors in...
