By Courtney Lemon and Cabot Zabriskie
The first day of the internship, all of the SPS interns gathered at the American Center for Physics, home to the American Institute of Physics (which publishes Physics Today) and a number of its member societies. Although the primary goal of the meeting was to prepare the interns for the summer ahead, Lemon and Zabriskie—both Mather Policy Interns—had an additional task: to talk to their sponsor, John Mather, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006. Lemon is spending her summer in the office of Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ). Zabriskie is working with staff on the US House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
But as different as the two internships may be, their end goals are the same: to give the students a chance to see the democratic process at work and to teach them how to present science to the public policy community in a real and tangible manner.
A path to physics
Our initial meeting with Mather encouraged our enthusiasm and determination to live up to his expectations over the coming weeks. As Mather explained in his chat with us, he sees every situation as a learning experience. Instead of just describing his background and how he came to be a physicist, he asked each of us to tell him about our path into physics. And once we had all shared our histories, we started comparing the best and the worst of each of our experiences. Then the focus shifted from personal history to broad policies regarding science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.
The commonality among all our experiences, however, was a mutual passion for physics, with all of us recognizing the challenges that students face with the rapid advancements in research and changing teaching standards. Mather clearly has a vested interest in students and in the future of science, as shown by his support of the internship program and his work for the National Academies on the next STEM education standards. We talked on this subject for some time, with all of us sharing our own unique anecdotes and opinions until Mather brought the conversation around to the topic of politics.
Public policy and physics
Mather is well versed in dealing with politicians and government officials due to his work on such large projects at NASA as the Cosmic Background Explorer and the James Webb Space Telescope. He was anxious to discuss the intricacies of work in a government environment. One of the most important skills we discussed and practiced was 'the elevator speech,' which is essentially a 30-second oral resumé one delivers to an important individual while standing in an elevator or waiting in line. Regarding science policy, Mather stated, 'There is a technical solution to every problem facing Congress right now.' Those few words hit home for us, and still do, as we continue on each day in our respective offices.
One of the things that really came through in our discussion with Mather was advice that he has followed throughout his entire career: recognizing when problems exist and coming up with focused ways to fix them. For example, Mather's PhD thesis was to map the cosmic microwave background from Earth. During his time working on that project, he realized that the atmosphere was interfering too much with the quiet signals that he needed to detect. Mather saw the ‘fix’ was to put the telescope in space but doing so would mean a number of other technical challenges would have to be overcome.
As the name implies, the Mather internship is funded by Mather, partly from his Nobel Prize money. 'I never felt that the money was really mine; it was the team's money, and I thought about what they would want to do with it,' said Mather. He also created the John and Jane Mather Foundation for Science and the Arts, which funds the John Mather Nobel Scholarship Program for interns based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. Each of those programs promotes students looking toward their future and advancing the future of science.
As we bid adieu to Mather, it was with a sense of regret at the questions not asked and the subjects not broached. Yet we were happy to have met our benefactor and received the advice that he felt most important for us to hear. Through the entire discussion, it was clear that Mather genuinely cares about this internship and what it stands for. As the interns who were selected to uphold his high standards, we hope we can do him justice and succeed in each of our respective positions.
Courtney Lemon is a physics undergraduate at Cal Poly Pomona in Pomona, California, and is hoping to join a graduate program next year. Once she has earned her PhD, she intends to work with promoting physics to the general public. Cabot Zabriskie is a physics undergraduate at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and is also looking into graduate programs. He intends to pursue a PhD in physics.
