Two former graduate students of UConn have been awarded prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science & Technology Policy Fellowships (STPF).
Keshia Ashe, who conducted research at UConn School of Medicine’s Institute of Regenerative Engineering and received her 2017 Master’s degree in chemical engineering from UConn, will perform a one-year fellowship at the National Science Foundation within its Computer & Information Science & Engineering Directorate. While Megan B. Miller, who received her Ph.D. in biomedical sciences at UConn Graduate School in 2015, will conduct her fellowship training at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in its Higher Education Solutions Network.
Ashe and Miller are among the new 2017-2018 class of 280 highly-trained scientists and engineers selected to professionally serve in the U.S. government’s federal agencies and congressional offices. This year’s class of fellows will serve in the Federal Judicial Center, Congress, and executive branch among 18 agencies or departments including overseas missions to learn first-hand about policymaking and implementation at the federal level.
The fellowships are operated as part of the AAAS mandate to “advance science and serve society” and aim to foster evidence-based policy and practice by engaging scientists, medical professionals and engineers from a broad range of disciplines, backgrounds and career stages to apply their knowledge and analytical skills for well-informed policies, regulations and programs and to build leadership capacity for a strong science and technology enterprise that benefits all people.
“We are particularly pleased to usher in the milestone 45th class of policy fellows who are passionate about connecting science and technology with public policy,” said Jennifer Pearl, director of the AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships program. “After the one-year fellowship, STPF fellows pair policymaking skills with scientific expertise to help lead society forward for years to come.”
Since the program’s inception in 1973, over 3,600 fellows have supported congressional offices, executive branch agencies and departments and the judicial branch seeding virtually every corner of Washington and beyond with a high caliber of scientific know-how.
For more information on AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships, visit www.aaas.org/stpf.
