White House Reconstitutes President’s Council of Advisory on Science and Technology
On October 22, the Trump Administration issued an executive order reconstituting the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). PCAST is comprised of experts from science and technology from outside the government who volunteer to advise the White House; it has not met since the Obama Administration. In addition to reconstituting the council, the President also appointed seven members to PCAST. The members primarily have backgrounds in the private sector: Dario Gill of IBM research, A.N. Sreeram of Dow Chemical, Sharon Hrynkow of Cyclo Therapeutics, H. Fisk Johnson of S.C. Johnson Inc., Catherine Bessant of Bank of America, and Shane Wall of HP. The lone appointee from a university is K. Birgitta Whaley, a chemistry professor of the University of California, Berkeley, and a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. A press release from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), reported on by Science Magazine, noted that the “next wave of nominees, which includes several additional scholars from academia, is proceeding through the clearance process.” The executive order and list of appointees can be found on the White House website.