Program Overview

Introduction to the University Program

The Rockefeller community is a diverse, intellectual scientific village where students and faculty work together to make transformative discoveries in bioscience.

The Hurford Science Diplomacy Initiative

The Hurford Science Diplomacy Initiative, sponsored by The Hurford Foundation, aims to help early career scientists understand the global context for their work and thus enable them to work more effectively at international levels.

Course Title

Science Diplomacy: The Context for Thinking Globally about the Biological and Medical Fields

Instructors

• Mandë Holford
• Jesse Ausubel
• Rodney Nichols

Synopsis

The course spans wide-ranging activities connecting science and technology with international affairs, with particular attention to global health and medicine. The six-week course of seminars samples the current landscape of Science Diplomacy issues, programs, and organizations. The goals of the course are to help early career biomedical scientists think more systematically about the global potential of their work and become acquainted with the people, networks, and resources available for scientific cooperation.

Course Outline

• Week 1: Introduction to Science Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons in the Age of Globalization
  • Guest Speaker: William Perry, Former Secretary of Defense
  • Session Leader: Rod Nichols
• Week 2: Introduction to International Human Migration, Biodiversity, Conservation and Capacity Building in Cuba and Beyond
  • Guest Speakers: Ana Luz Porzecanski, Director, Center for Biodiversity at The American Museum of Natural History, Jesse Ausubel, Director, Program for the Human Environment, The Rockefeller University
  • Session Leader: Mandë Holford
• Week 3: Science Diplomacy + You @ the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
  • Guest Speaker: CFR Resident Fellows in Global Health and in International Security
  • Session Leaders: Mandë Holford/Jesse Ausubel
• Week 4: Global Scientific Exchange at Subzero Temperatures
  • Guest Speaker: Melody Brown Burkins, Associate Director, Programs & Research, John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding
  • Session Leaders: Mandë Holford
• Week 5: Changing the Global Face of Medicine
  • Guest Speakers: Margaret Hamburg, Foreign Secretary of the National Academy of Medicine; Former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
  • Session Leader: Rodney Nichols
• Week 6: International Migration of People, Ideas, and Technology
  • Guest Speakers: Torsten Wiesel, President Emeritus of The Rockefeller University, Asi Burak, CEO Power Play, Chairman of Games for Change
  • Session Leader: Jesse Ausubel
• Week 7: Field trip to Washington, D.C.
  • Planned Visits: Department of State; National Academy of Sciences; Congress
  • Chaperones: Jesse Ausubel and Mandë Holford

Course Schedule

• Date: Thursdays, February 9-March 17, 2017
• Time: 3-5pm
• Location: CRC306

Student Science Diplomacy Project

Project: Science Soap Box

Science Soapbox is a student-run podcast at the intersection of science, policy, and advocacy.

Additional Reading List

1. CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force report, The Emerging Global Health Crisis: Noncommunicable Diseases in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
2. The Science of Science Policy: A Handbook
3. Scientific Cooperation, State Conflict: The Role of Scientists in Mitigating International Discord
4. New Frontiers in Science Diplomacy: Navigating the Changing Balance of Power
5. Science and Two-Armed Diplomats
6. The Elusive Transformation, Science, Technology and the Evolution of International Politics
7. Science and Technology in US International Affairs
8. Arab Development Report
9. World Health Statistics – 2012
10. Science and Two-Armed Diplomats
11. Chronic Diseases- The Urgent Need For Action
12. National Security Strategy that includes health issues
13. National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats
14. International Health Regulations
15. Reinventing Phage Therapy
16. Bacteriophage endolysins: A novel anti-infective to control Gram-positive pathogens
17. Sample proposals: Myanmar and North Korea
18. Development Science and Science Diplomacy
19. Arab Development Report
20. Sample proposals: Argentina/Bolivia DNA barcoding project; Synchrotron project in Jordan
21. Scientific Cooperation, State Conflict: The Role of Scientists in Mitigating International Discord
22. Science and Technology in US International Affairs
23. Sample proposals: Dead Sea Net; US NAS cooperation with Iran
24. The Elusive Transformation, Science, Technology and the Evolution of International Politics
25. Building a National Science Diplomacy System
26. Beyond Reproduction: Women's health in today's developing world
27. Sample proposals: Israel-Palestine Science Organization; Iran-Afghan-Mississippi Delta; Barcoding project on endangered species
28. Science Diplomacy Short Course project proposal form
29. The Science of Science Policy: A Handbook
30. Science must be seen to bridge the political divide
31. Lifting the burden
32. Obesity and cardiovascular disease in developing countries: a growing problem and an economic threat
33. Foreign Assistance in an Aging World
34. Sigma Xi 2012 Assembly of Delegates address by Glenn Schweitzer and William Colglazier on Science Diplomacy
35. American Association for the Advancement of Science Science & Technology Policy Fellowship