Neal Lane, White House science adviser to former President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001, will speak at the University of Colorado at Boulder on Wednesday, Oct. 5, at 7 p.m. in room 1B50 of the Eaton Humanities Building.
The free, public event is part of a yearlong lecture series titled "Policy, Politics and Science in the White House: Conversations with Presidential Science Advisers," sponsored by CU-Boulder's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research.
Lane, who is a longtime fellow adjoint at JILA -- a joint institute of CU-Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology -- will address the role of science in the presidential decision-making process. Following Lane's remarks, CSTPR director Roger Pielke Jr. will interview Lane about topics such as the current Bush administration's alleged misuse of scientific information. The event will conclude with a question-and-answer session with the audience.
As presidential science adviser, Lane was the most senior member of the White House staff on matters of science and technology policy. Lane, who served as chancellor of the CU-Colorado Springs campus from 1984 to 1986, was known as an effective advocate for science among policymakers, especially within the White House.
The CU-Boulder presidential science adviser series coincides with unusually high interest by the public and media in science policy issues like global warming and hurricanes, energy development and space exploration, Pielke said.
Lane was the director of the National Science Foundation from 1993 to 1998 and served on the National Science Board. He joined the faculty of Rice University in 1966 and served as provost from 1986 to 1993. He currently is a Rice professor and a senior fellow at Rice's James A. Baker III Public Policy Institute. He received his doctorate in physics from the University of Oklahoma
The series previously hosted science advisers to Presidents G.W. Bush, Clinton and Richard Nixon. Upcoming series speakers include Donald Hornig, science adviser to President Lyndon Johnson, on Oct. 24 at 7 p.m. in Old Main Chapel, and George Keyworth, science adviser to President Ronald Reagan, on Jan. 31 at 7 p.m. in Hale Science Building room 270.
Additional information about the series, as well as webcasts, transcripts, audiotapes, photographs from past talks and a library of background materials are available at: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/scienceadvisors.
CSTRP is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. CIRES is a joint program of CU-Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For more information visit