Conflict of Interest Disclosure

The proposed committee is composed of individuals across key areas of expertise required to carry out the study of Science Literacy and Public Support for Science. The proposed committee members have expertise in science literacy, health literacy, education and learning sciences, international comparisons, survey methods and statistics, and psychometrics and attitude measurement. The proposed members contribute expertise in the disciplines of science education, public policy, and communications. The proposed members represent a range of institutional types including research universities, medical schools and private industry. The primary candidates include 6 women and 5 men, with 4 of the candidates from the midwest, 3 from the east coast, 3 from the west coast, and one from the United Kingdom. Of the 11 primary candidates proposed, 3 are from underrepresented minority groups.

The proposed chair, Catherine Snow, is a renowned educational psychologist and applied linguist. She has extensive experience with the Academies committee process, including serving as a committee chair. In 2009, Snow was appointed to the Patricia Albjerg Graham Professorship in the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research activities include a longitudinal study of language and literacy skills among low-income children who have been followed for 15 years since age three; following the language development of young children participating in the Early Head Start intervention; studying the vocabulary development of first- and second-language learners; and considering aspects of transfer from first to second language in the domains of language and literacy. Snow has also written about bilingualism and its relation to language policy issues such as bilingual education in the United States and in developing nations, and about testing policy. For the Academies, Snow chaired the Committee on Developmental Outcomes and Assessments for Young Children as well as the Steering Committee for the Workshop on Pre-Mathematical Development and Science Exploration in Early Childhood, in addition to serving on the Division Committee for the Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education.

The proposed committee members bring substantial expertise in science literacy, science communication, and attitude measurement. Dominique Brossard is a chair in the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where she has published extensively on questions related to public understanding of science, with a specific emphasis on public opinion dynamics related to controversial scientific issues. Eugenie Scott, National Academy of Sciences member, is the founding Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). She is a leading voice in the nation’s ongoing conversation about evolution vs. creationism, and has received national recognition for her NCSE activities. Nick Allum is professor of sociology at the University of Essex, where he sits on the editorial boards for journals Public Understanding of Science and Science Communication, while also serving on the advisory boards for two major science surveys (the Wellcome Trust Monitor and the United Kingdom’s Department of Business Industry and Skills’ Public Attitudes to Science Survey). John Besley of Michigan State University studies how views about decision-makers and decision processes affect perceptions of science and technology (S&T) with potential health or environmental impacts. In addition to his regular research, Dr. Besley is the lead author of the 2014 and the 2016 (forthcoming) chapters on public attitudes and knowledge about S&T in the biennial Science and Engineering Indicators report from the National Science Board.

The proposed committee members bring a range of expertise in health literacy and health communication. Earnestine Willis, MD, MPH, is a Kellner Professor in Pediatrics, Director of the Center for the Advancement of Underserved Children (CAUC), and Director of Health Equity and Urban Clinical Care Partnerships at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She is currently serving on the National Academy of Medicine’s Roundtable on Health Literacy. Alexa McCray is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Dr. McCray is also the former director of the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, a research division of the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, and currently chairs the Academies’ Board on Research Data and Information. Janet Ohene-Frempong is the president of J O Frempong and Associates, Inc., a private consulting agency with over 25 years of experience providing a range of communication services including consumer research, materials and forms development, program development, presentations, seminars and institution-based coaching in consumer health communications. Formerly the Director of the Health Literacy Project at the Health Promotion Council of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Ohene-Frempong also served on the Academies’ workshop committee on Integrating Health Literacy, Cultural Compentency, and Language Access.

Finally, the proposed committee members also bring expertise in the areas of education, learning sciences and international comparisons. Jonathan Osborne, the Kamalachari Chair in Science Education at the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, was a member of the NAS committee that produced the Framework for K-12 Science Education. Currently, he serves as the chair of the expert group that produced the framework for the science assessments conducted by the OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2015 and 2018. Louis Gomez holds the MacArthur Chair in Digital Media and Learning in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California Los Angeles, and previously held Northwestern University’s Aon Chair in the Learning Sciences at the School of Education and Social Policy. Dr. Gomez is also a member of the National Academy of Education. Noah Feinstein is a recently tenured professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where his current work focuses on public engagement with science among parents of recently diagnosed autistic children, the contribution of learning (writ large) to climate change adaptation, the impact of changing scientific practices on scientist outreach, and the need for museums and science centers to forge better connections with their diverse communities.

Committee Membership Roster Comments