By Jamie Chamberlin
Monitor staff

Psychologist Kenneth Whang took it as a compliment when one of his colleagues accused him of speaking like an economist. After all, he?s a scientist with only six months? experience working on Congress? Joint Economic Committee, minority staff. But the comment meant he obviously was acclimating well.

Whang is working for the committee for one year as part of APA?s Congressional Fellowship program, coordinated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The program sponsors psychologists to work as special legislative assistants for members of Congress or for a congressional committee for one year.

APA sponsors six or seven psychologists each year through the AAAS-APA program, as well as one science fellow to work at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a year. The fellowships give psychologists the opportunity to learn about and contribute their expertise to the policy-making process.

Child and family issues
APA fellow Caryn Blitz, PhD, works with the Senate Labor and Human Resources Subcommittee on Children and Families through the office of Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), where her primary focus is child care issues. She is coordinating forums, site visits and press events for a Democratic task force on early childhood issues called Right Start 2000: A Democratic Strike Force for Kids, an effort to raise public awareness of early childhood development and education. Later this year she will have the opportunity to work on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) reauthorization.

Before coming to Washington for the fellowship, Blitz held a research position at the Alcohol Research Center at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, in Farmington, Conn. With a background in clinical and community psychology, Blitz has a natural interest in social policy. She is considering a career change from academe to policy-making to further explore how to shape social policy as a psychologist, she says.

The fellowship experience is markedly different from her research experience, she says. As a researcher she was accustomed to having more time to gather information and think through issues with colleagues.

?You don?t have that luxury here,? she says. But being in a subcommittee office does allow her to be more focused than a personal office would, she says. ?My portfolio [range of issues] is relatively small so I get more depth and breadth. Given my research interests and the senator?s excellent record on child and family issues, this is the ideal placement for me.?

A steep learning curve
Robin Buhrke, PhD, the William A. Bailey AIDS policy fellow, says the hectic Capitol Hill schedule differs little from working in the counseling center at Duke University, but she is challenged by having to adjust to the politics of the Hill.

?The learning curve is really steep right now,? she says.

Buhrke, an assistant clinical professor in psychiatry and behavior sciences at Duke University, is working in the office of Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.). Wellstone is considering introducing a bill offering benefits to same-sex domestic partners of federal employees, and Buhrke will draft the bill and prepare the floor speech if the bill is introduced. During the next session, Wellstone?s office will focus on early childhood education and development issues, she says.

Buhrke feels fortunate to have been placed in Sen. Wellstone?s office?she was impressed with his accomplishments and positions on issues before she considered applying for a fellowship, she says.

Technology serving society
Paul Eckert?s background in health care, information systems and quality improvement made him a perfect fit for Sen. John Breaux?s (D-La.) office, which needed someone to pull together a broad range of technology-related issues. Rising to the challenge, Eckert has broadened his scope to include industrial development policy, NASA programs and Internet services like distance learning and telehealth.

His greatest new interest is encouraging high-technology business growth by building partnerships of industry, academia and government. Another new direction involves using the Internet to improve health care, education and social support for the elderly. To assist Sen. Breaux with this wide-ranging agenda, Eckert works with both the Commerce Committee and the Special Committee on Aging.

Eckert was originally trained as a clinical psychologist but has become a quality improvement and information systems specialist. He is currently on sabbatical from his position as director of quality improvement in the behavioral services division at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.

Eckert values the expanded responsibilities his fellowship offers.

?Our field gains prestige when psychologists use their skills not only to improve health-care services, but also to promote general economic growth,? he says. ?This kind of contribution further enhances our expanding role as leaders in American society.?

A stint at NIH
Margaret Huyck, PhD, APA?s science fellow, is working in the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) at NIH. She is an OBSSR liaison to several of the NIH institutes. Her work includes exploring the institutes? agendas and working to integrate social and behavioral science into their research.

?Our goal is to develop a better understanding of what kinds of social and behavioral research are being funded and what educational programs can include a component of social and behavioral research,? she says. She is also coordinating a workshop to assist African-American sociologists who are looking for research grants, and she is coordinating an OBSSR Science prevention Conference at NIH to be held in November.

Huyck?s extensive volunteer work with her state and local chapter of the Older Women?s League (OWL), a grassroots organization that educates and advocates for older women, fueled her desire to better understand how social policy was made and was probably the best preparation for her fellowship. She edited OWL?s state and local newsletter and did advocacy work for the group in an effort to disseminate information on health to older women and get older women involved in research programs.

Huyck plans to take the knowledge she gains from this experience back to the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, where as a professor of psychology she works with graduate students in clinical, rehabilitation and industrial-organizational psychology and with undergraduates interested in pursuing psychology.

Health and environment
Paula Skedsvold, PhD, is splitting her fellowship year between the office of Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). In Lewis? office, she is focusing on race relations and environmental justice. Lewis is interested in starting a bipartisan congressional dialogue on race relations and will bring together a core group of lawmakers to explore issues of race in their own lives and examine how their attitudes affect public policy decisions. This effort will hopefully lead to new activities to promote positive race relations back in the legislators? districts, says Skedsvold. She will also investigate findings that low-income communities suffer a disproportionate share of environmental pollution. Lewis plans to introduce a bill that would identify the total amount of pollution in those areas, study the impact of pollution on health outcomes and provide targeted health-care services to the affected communities.

In Pelosi?s office, Skedsvold is working on appropriations for health agencies, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment issues, and on a special project examining the high incidence of breast cancer in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Skedsvold brought a wealth of public policy experience to her position. For the past two years she has served as the Scientist in the Public Interest for APA?s Div. 9, (Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues), where she advocated for federal social and behavioral sciences research funding and educated policy-makers on issues affecting science. That position made her transition to the fellowship fairly smooth.

?Learning the Washington lingo is half the battle, and fortunately, I had a good portion of this behind me. Plus, I have a better sense of whom to call for information when time is tight,? she says.

Boosting education
Rena Subotnik, PhD, the Esther Katz Rosen fellow, is working in Sen. Jeff Bingaman?s (D-N.M.) office, primarily on higher education legislation, with a special focus on teacher preparation. One of Sen. Bingaman?s chief concerns is ensuring that all classroom instruction is organized and led by well-prepared, professional teachers.

Subotnik meets with her counterparts in the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee and the U.S. Department of Education to discuss Democratic party strategies on education issues and meets with Bingaman and the rest of his legislative staff once or twice a week to keep him posted on the status of legislation and related press events.

Subotnik says the intensity of the office schedule can be challenging. As an instructor at Hunter College in New York City and as a research consultant to the college?s lab school for gifted children, she is used to more autonomy in terms of time, she says.

By the end of her fellowship year, Subotnik aims to become a better advocate for children and educators.

?The experiences I?m having are invaluable in terms of learning how to communicate effectively and meeting key people in the world of education policy. I wouldn?t trade this experience for the world,? she says.

Science as an investment
Whang, who earned his PhD at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., comes to the Joint Economic Committee from a postdoctoral position at the Brain Sciences Center at the University of Minnesota.

The committee was eager to have a scientist on board because of its interest in long-term investments in science and technology. Whang is investigating how private companies and public agencies measure the value derived from their research and development programs. ?What I hope to get out of working with the committee is an introductory understanding of the core issues of science policy and how they fit into the bigger economic picture,? he says.

As a scientist, he enjoys observing the style of work on Capitol Hill. ?Just being able to observe the process in action as a behavioral scientist is a worthwhile reason to come here.?