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Congressional Science Fellowship
Hall of Fame
Elizabeth M. Robinson
During the fellowship year, Dr. Robinson 'Worked in the office of Representative Richard Gephardt (D-MO) as a legislative assistant, drafting bills, writing speeches, representing the Congressman at meetings, and advising him on votes. She specialized in environment, science, and technology issues, with special emphasis on global warming, municipal solid waste, and the health effects of exposure to hazardous wastes.
Robinson earned her B.S. in physics at Reed College and her Ph.D. in geophysics was. awarded jointly by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She has been a National Science Foundation Fellow and has studied at Oxford University and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Before accepting the GSA Fellowship, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, investigating fluid flow in the earth's interior and in hydrogeologic settings. Her research interests include flow in hazardous waste, effects of melting in the uppermost mantle, and the concepts of chaos and nonlinear systems as applied to the mantle.
Her interest in science and public policy led her to participate in the Science, Technology and Policy Program at MIT and a faculty seminar, "Values, Technology, Science and Society" at Stanford. "Scientists interested in public policy can make an immediate and beneficial impact on the communication between the scientific community and legislators, and I see myself fulfilling that role as a Congressional Science Fellow," Robinson said in her application for the fellowship.
Since the end of her fellowship, Dr. Robinson has worked at the Office of Technology Assessment, which is the primary scientific and technical support agency for Congress. Her current project looks at the basic research system in the United States as it moves into the 1990s.