Melanie Roberts is director of state and regional affairs at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). In this role, she collaborates with regional leaders and associations to advance mutual interests and amplify PNNL’s regional impact.

Roberts began her career as a neuroscientist and transitioned to policy through a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship, where she worked to advance innovation policy and interdisciplinary research in the U.S. Senate and the National Science Foundation. Over the fifteen years, she has served in leadership roles that build capacity and opportunity for scientists and engineers to collaborate across boundaries on complex societal challenges. She founded and directed a community-engaged leadership program at AAAS, served as assistant director for collaborative research at the BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado, and served as an independent consultant specializing in strategic partnerships and multidisciplinary program design.

Roberts has served on numerous advisory committees, including the Committee on Graduate STEM Education for the 21^st Century at the National Academy of Sciences and the President’s Council at Olin College. She is an honorary fellow of AAAS. Roberts completed a Ph.D. in in neuroscience at the University of Washington and a postdoctoral fellowship in science and innovation policy at the University of Colorado Boulder.

1. How did you get involved with science policy?
Melanie: I became involved in science policy as soon as I learned of its existence during a career seminar in my second year of graduate school. I had gone into science hoping to contribute to cures for diseases and was surprised to learn that academic researchers weren’t working more closely with the companies, medical professionals, or patients who might benefit from our work. I was also doing research on stem cells — a front-page issue at the time — which caused me to reflect more about ethics and regulation of science and technology. Eager to learn more about the big picture of science and innovation, I attended a AAAS annual meeting where I learned about career opportunities and met science policy scholars and practitioners, some of whom are still mentors and colleagues today. My career mission quickly changed from curing diseases to a more systems-level, discipline-agnostic mission of strengthening the link between science, technology, and societal benefit.  Given that organizations like ESEP did not yet exist, I gathered other students to start one of the earliest grad student-run science policy groups and were happily surprised to learn that we had hit on an area of interest to many others. I then started my official policy career as a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow.
 
2. How does your organization engage with science policy?
Melanie: I work for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory, which performs R&D funded by DOE and other federal sponsors to keep the nation on the cutting edge of R&D, especially for applications in sustainable energy and national security. Technical expertise from the national labs often informs national or even global policy, like IPCC reports and nuclear nonproliferation policies. In my job as director of state and regional affairs, I look for ways to connect research at PNNL with regional impact and to share S&T information to inform regional policy discussions. Given Washington State’s ambitious climate and clean energy policies, many of those discussions have been related to decarbonization and electric grid resilience.
 
3. What makes you optimistic about the future?
Melanie: Reading news from DC can make it seem like the country is hopelessly divided. But I am heartened by many examples of thoughtful, bipartisan dialogue and collaboration on hard issues at the state and local level. For example, in Washington State, there is bipartisan agreement that climate change is a key threat and decarbonization is desirable. The debate is how to do it in a way that doesn’t negatively impact economic competitiveness, energy reliability, or underserved and rural communities.

4. What piece of pop culture (a show, a podcast, a book, an album or song) would you recommend?
Melanie: I am currently engrossed in the book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein, which upends the commonly accepted belief that those who specialize early become the best in their fields. This is very comforting to those of us who were not content to stay forever in a narrowly focused field and have moved into the more generalist science policy career.
 
5. What would your ideal job be if money were no object? (Suggested by Rebecca Mandt)
Melanie: Great question! My ideal job is one working with a great team that shares my mission, which is still generally “science and technology for society.” I believe that the primary reason it is difficult to address complex societal issues is that it requires collaboration across boundaries — of disciplines, institutions, cultures, and more. Humans, including scientists, are not prepared by our educational system to do this, and we do not have the institutional structure or reward systems in place to do it. I would like to help build these new educational opportunities or institutions. I also have an interest in solving problems across partisan divides.
 
BONUS: What should we ask the next ESEP member we talk to? It can be silly or serious.
Melanie: What is something that you assumed early in your career that you have since found to be incorrect?