Rick Borchelt

Speaker abstract

The Two‑Way Street of Public Engagement
"Public engagement" in science and technology has become the new buzz word in promoting public understanding and support for science, first arising about 25 years ago to replace the more limited concepts of public understanding or public awareness of science. In contemporary practice, however, it's often only the word that's changed: Public engagement covers the waterfront from lectures to town halls to surveys to focus groups. True public engagement, however, is seldom employed because it infers the active involvement of nonscientists in decision making about scientific research, regulation, and funding, a prospect that often provokes concern from scientists and researchers but that provides greater transparency and public trust in the scientific process. Can and should the scientific community embrace public engagement as a public policy strategy?

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Biography

Rick Borchelt is special assistant for public affairs to the director of the National Cancer Institute at NIH, providing strategic guidance and coordination of the Institute's communications and public affairs programs. He is the former communications director for the research, education, and economics missions area of USDA, and for the USDA Office of the Chief Scientist. Prior to coming to USDA, he was director of communications for the Pew‑funded Genetics and Public Policy Center at The Johns Hopkins University, where his work included message development, media relations, and strategic communications. Part of his work at Hopkins supported development of communication materials to support a $2M/2‑yr award from the National Institutes of Health for public consultation and engagement on a planned large‑scale study of genes and the environment. He also is Lecturer in science policy and politics in the Hopkins Advanced Academic Programs division.

He has had a varied career in science communications and science public policy, including stints as media relations director for the National Academy of Sciences; press secretary for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology under the chairmanship of the late Rep. George E. Brown, Jr.; special assistant for public affairs in the Executive Office of The President during the Clinton Administration; director of communications for the Department of Energy's Office of Science; and director of communications and public affairs at The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT.

While affiliated with Vanderbilt University, he chaired a three‑year study, funded by NASA and DOE, on best practices in communicating to the public about science, technology and health. The study, by a blue‑ribbon panel of Pulitzer‑Prize winning journalists, scientists, public affairs officers, and science writers, culminated in the March 2002 conference "Communicating the Future," the first peer‑reviewed international conference of its kind. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2004, and is immediate past chair of AAAS Section Y (General Interest in Science and Engineering). He is an advisor to the NSF‑funded Nanoscale Informal Science Education (NISE) project, and a committee member for the National Academy of Engineering's study of public communication about engineering.

He is an award‑winning (CASE, Society for Government Communication, Society for Technical Communication) science writer with experience in arranging and coordinating workshops for scientists and science writers to help them better understand public communication of science, and is a frequent guest on scientific programs and symposia on communicating with the public.

An undergraduate biology major, he's done graduate work in both insect systematics and science communication. Areas of particular interest include developing community based public engagement in science and adapting the Southern narrative tradition to science communication. Rick lives in College Park, MD.