{"id":61182,"date":"2008-12-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-20T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/gazette\/?p=61182"},"modified":"2016-11-10T14:21:11","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T19:21:11","slug":"john-p-holdren-named-president-elect-obamas-science-advisor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2008\/12\/john-p-holdren-named-president-elect-obamas-science-advisor\/","title":{"rendered":"John P. Holdren named President-elect Obama\u2019s Science Advisor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tScience & Tech\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\n\t\t

\n\t\tJohn P. Holdren named President-elect Obama\u2019s Science Advisor\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t\n\t
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\n\t\tSharon Wilke and B. D. Colen\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\tBelfer Center for Science and International Affairs\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t

\n\t\t\tBroad Institute Director Eric Lander named a co-chair of the President\u2019s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n\n\n\n
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President-elect Barack Obama today announced<\/a> that he has selected Harvard\u2019s John P. Holdren<\/a> to serve as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology in the new administration. The post, popularly known as \u201cthe President\u2019s science advisor,\u201d also includes directorship of the Office of Science and Technology Policy<\/a> in the Executive Office of the President and requires Senate confirmation.<\/p>\n

In announcing the appointment during his weekly radio address, the President-elect called Holdren “one of the most passionate and persistent voices of our time about the
\ngrowing threat of climate change,” and said he looks “forward to his wise counsel in
\nthe years ahead.”<\/p>\n

Holdren is the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard\u2019s John F. Kennedy School of Government<\/a> and director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy program in the School\u2019s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs<\/a>. <\/p>\n

During the address, Obama also announced that Eric Lander<\/a>, professor of systems biology<\/a> at Harvard Medical School<\/a> and founding director of the Broad Institute<\/a> of Harvard and MIT, will serve with Holdren and Harold Varmus<\/a>, National Institutes of Health<\/a> Director during the Clinton Administration, as a co-chair of the President\u2019s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking forcefully for the need not only to advance science and technology as a part of the national agenda, but also to insure that scientific information drives science policy, Obama said that, “right now, in labs, classrooms and companies across America, our leading minds are hard at work chasing the next big idea, on the cusp of breakthroughs that could revolutionize our lives. But history tells us that they cannot do it alone. From landing on the moon, to sequencing the human genome, to inventing the Internet, America has been the first to cross that new frontier because we had leaders who paved the way: leaders like President Kennedy, who inspired us to push the boundaries of the known world and achieve the impossible; leaders who not only invested in our scientists, but who respected the integrity of the scientific process.”<\/p>\n

The President-elect went on to say that “…the truth is that promoting science isn\u2019t just about providing resources\u2014it\u2019s about protecting free and open inquiry. It\u2019s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It\u2019s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it\u2019s inconvenient\u2014especially when it\u2019s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States\u2014and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work,” Obama said.<\/p>\n

Harvard Provost Steven E. Hyman, a neurobiologist and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, called the appointment of John Holdren, Eric Lander, and Harold Varmus “inspired.” These are great scientists and proven leaders who will work well together to restore the highest scientific values to the nation’s research and technology enterprise,\u201d Hyman said.<\/p>\n

In addition to his Kennedy School appointments, John Holdren is also Professor of Environmental Science and Policy in Harvard\u2019s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences<\/a> and President and Director of the independent, nonprofit Woods Hole Research Center<\/a>. He has been at Harvard since 1996 and affiliated part-time with the Woods Hole Research Center since 1992.<\/p>\n

Holdren holds MS and PhD degrees in aerospace engineering and plasma physics from MIT and Stanford and is a specialist in energy technology and policy, global climate change, nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, and science and technology policy. He is a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science<\/a> (AAAS) \u2013 the largest general science society in the world \u2013 and a member of both the National Academy of Sciences<\/a> and the National Academy of Engineering<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Belfer Center Director Graham Allison<\/a> said of President-elect Obama\u2019s expected announcement, \u201cWe are proud that President-elect Obama has selected John Holdren as science advisor. John is the very model of a policy-relevant scientist. He has a deep understanding of the dynamics of science and technology as drivers of the challenges society faces, from climate disruption to nuclear danger\u2014and new opportunities for feasible solutions. Over the past decade at the Belfer Center, he has been a great colleague and wise leader of the School\u2019s research on science, technology, and public policy. John\u2019s move to Washington will be a huge loss for Harvard but a tremendous gain for our nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of the great interlinked challenges of our time \u2013 the economy, energy, environment, health, security, and the particular vulnerabilities of the poor to shortfalls in all of these \u2013 can be solved without insights and advances from the physical sciences, the life sciences, and engineering,\u201d Holdren said. “President-elect Obama understands this with perfect clarity. To be able to work with him and the rest of the splendid team he has assembled to be sure that the potential of science and technology to build a more prosperous society and a better world is fully developed and exploited in all that his administration does is the greatest opportunity \u2013 and the greatest responsibility \u2013 of my professional life.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Harvard\u2019s Kennedy School, Holdren\u2019s teaching, research, and engagement with public policy have focused on bolstering U.S. efforts to develop and deploy energy technologies to reduce the risks of climate change and overdependence on oil, devising ways to minimize dangers from nuclear weapons and weapon-usable materials, and strengthening the processes by which accurate information about policy-relevant science and technology gets acquired by decision-makers and the public.<\/p>\n

Holdren and his Harvard Kennedy School colleagues have also developed substantial programs of cooperation with China and India on development and deployment of cleaner, more efficient energy technologies for addressing the challenges of climate change, oil dependence, and sustainable development. This year he was named to a three-year, nonresident appointment as Guest Professor in the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University in Beijing<\/a> (known as \u201cthe MIT of China\u201d). <\/p>\n

In the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the Harvard University-wide Center for the Environment <\/a>(HUCE, with which he is also affiliated), Holdren focuses on how better to link the rapidly growing scientific understanding of the causes and consequences of global climate change to the policy challenges of developing adequate remedies in time, as well as on helping students develop their ability to function effectively at this science-policy intersection. From his arrival at Harvard in 1996 until this year, he served as a member of the Board of Tutors of the HUCE-linked undergraduate concentration in Environmental Science and Public Policy<\/p>\n

At the Woods Hole Research Center, which is not connected to Harvard except through cooperative projects, Holdren and a staff of ecologists, geographers, geochemists, atmospheric scientists, economists, and policy analysts focus on the biological side of the connection between human activities and global climate change. The Center\u2019s projects include the use of remote-sensing information from satellites to monitor tropical deforestation and other changes in the Earth\u2019s vegetation; on-the-ground studies of the effects of climate change and other human influences on soils, vegetation, and the hydrologic cycle; modeling and analysis of the intensifying competition among human uses of land and vegetation for food, fiber, biofuels, and carbon storage; and policy approaches for making the avoidance of deforestation a pillar of the post-2012 global agreement being worked out under the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In his presidential address to the 2007 annual meeting of the AAAS
\npresidential address, entitled \u201cScience and Technology for Sustainable
\nWell-Being\u201d, Holdren addressed five specific challenges under that
\nheading: meeting the basic needs of the poor; managing the competition
\nfor the land, water, and terrestrial biota of the planet; maintaining
\nthe integrity of the oceans; mastering the energy-economy-environment
\ndilemma; and moving toward a nuclear weapon-free world. <\/p>\n

He also
\nidentified some ingredients of a general strategy for more
\ncomprehensively and effectively applying science and engineering to
\nimprove the human condition, including:<\/p>\n