New Fellowship in Washington Office

This fall, the APS Office of Public Affairs launched a new fellowship that gives a physicist the opportunity to spend a year in the APS Washington Office gaining hands-on experience in science policy work.

The first fellow is Christina Hood, a recent PhD graduate from CalTech. She says her training in quantum optics provided some background for politics, "From the outside, political events sometimes seem illogical - but make more sense when you look for underlying connections." Though unlike quantum mechanics, "politics is driven by hidden variables," she added.

During her tenure as Public Affairs Fellow, Hood will focus on increasing the grassroots involvement of APS members in science policy through congressional visits and action networks, and on lobbying for K-12 science education funding.