Navigating the Maze: How Science and Technology Policies Shape America and the World

Navigating the Maze: How Science and Technology Policies Shape America and the World offers a captivating deep dive into the inner workings of the world of public policy. Written by prominent science advocate and renowned physics researcher and educator, Michael S. Lubell, this valuable book provides insights and real-world examples for anyone looking to understand how policy works in reality: for students, scientists, and the public. Well-organized and featuring a compelling historical narrative, this unique resource will enable researchers, educators, elected officials, industrialists, financial managers, science lobbyists, and readers in general to easily navigate the complex world of science and technology (S&T) policy.

As science communication and STEM policy occupy rapidly growing areas of interest and provide important career paths, this book provides invaluable insights into the public policy arena, as well as lessons for effective science advocacy.

• Presents compelling narratives about Climate Change, the Internet, the Human Genome, the BRAIN Initiative, the Manhattan Project, the Science Stimulus, the origin of the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, and more.
• Provides insights into the future of S&T through a 225-year American policy retrospective, highlighting impacts on health and medicine, STEM education, economic growth, energy, defense, innovation, and industrial competitiveness.
• Illuminates the role of S&T on the global stage, from diplomatic engagement to military intervention and from scientific collaboration to technological competition.

Michael S. Lubell earned his B.A. (1963) from Columbia University, and his M.S. (1965) and Ph.D. (1969) from Yale University. He was a member of the Yale faculty from 1971 to 1980, where his academic activities included directing the Combined Sciences Program. He joined the Physics Department at CCNY in 1980, where he served as Department Chair from 1999 to 2006. He also served as Director of Public Affairs of The American Physical Society (APS) from 1994 to 2016. He has held fellowships from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst. He has also held concurrent positions at Brookhaven National Laboratory, the University of Texas-Austin, the Santa Barbara (Kavli) Institute of Theoretical Physics and Universität Bielefeld. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and his biography appears in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in Science and Engineering and Who’s Who in American Education.
Dr. Lubell's publications comprise more than 250 articles and abstracts in scientific journals and books covering subjects in the fields of high-energy physics, nuclear physics, atomic, molecular and optical (AMO) physics, energy research and science policy. His use of polarized electrons to probe fundamental processes in atoms, nuclei and nucleons is internationally known. His science research interests now center on AMO studies of quantum chaos and simple molecular systems and energy efficiency. He has taught a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate physics courses at Yale and CCNY, as well as a very popular introductory astronomy course and equally popular seminars on science, science policy and politics.