Author Archives: Karen Saxe

About Karen Saxe

Karen Saxe is Director of the AMS Office of Government Relations which works to connect the mathematics community with Washington decision-makers who affect mathematics research and education. Over many years she has contributed much time to the AMS, MAA, and AWM, including service as vice president of the MAA and in policy and advocacy work with all three. She was the 2013-2014 AMS Congressional Fellow, working for Senator Al Franken on education issues, with focus on higher education and STEM education. In Minnesota she has served on the Citizens Redistricting Commission following the 2010 census and serves on the Common Cause Minnesota Redistricting Leadership Circle. She has three children and, when not at work especially enjoys being with them and reading, hiking and sharing good food and wine and beer with family and friends.

Gerrymandering and math in the era of state reform

Posted on September 4, 2019 by Karen Saxe

Editor’s note: Hope Johnson is a data scientist at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, where she is on a team developing OpenPrecincts, a database of precinct and electoral data to help citizens participate fully in redistricting. Hope graduated from Macalester College … Continue reading →

Posted in Redistricting, Science Policy, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Some fun and interesting summer reading: A brief history of the National Science Foundation

Posted on August 14, 2019 by Karen Saxe

I blog regularly about annual appropriations for the National Science Foundation (NSF), and about NSF policies that might affect you. But, what is the NSF? When did it come to be? Why? What makes it different from all other federal … Continue reading →

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Addressing Threats and Vulnerabilities in Critical Interconnected Systems: Common Principles in Disease Outbreaks, Internet Malware, and Bank Failures

Posted on July 16, 2019 by Karen Saxe

On June 13, the AMS, together with MSRI hosted another in its series of biannual Congressional Briefings, with that title. Our presenter was Jon Kleinberg, the Tisch University Professor of Computer Science and Information Science at Cornell University. Introductory remarks … Continue reading →

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AMS Primer on Open Access

Posted on June 25, 2019 by Karen Saxe

  Over the past several years, traditional models of journal publications have been scrutinized, and new models of “open access” publishing have been launched. The AMS has made changes to its family of journals, and has been active in policy … Continue reading →

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What is Congress up to, vis-à-vis the NSF? Money and Demography

Posted on June 4, 2019 by Karen Saxe

  During the week of May 6, I attended two hearings in the House of Representatives, both of which had to do with the NSF. Congressional hearings are (usually) open to the public. Some are easy to get in to, … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadening particpation in STEM, Federal support for science, National Science Foundation, NSF | Tagged , | Leave a comment

President Trump issues his FY 2020 budget, what does it look like for the mathematical sciences, and what happens next?

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Karen Saxe

  On March 11 President Trump released his proposal, titled “A Budget for a Better America,” outlining how the government should make investments for the FY2020. As in his first two, his third annual budget includes massive cuts for science. … Continue reading →

Posted in Advocacy, Appropriations, Federal support for science, National Science Foundation, NSF | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

We are not doing so well

Posted on April 25, 2019 by Karen Saxe

Editor’s note: This was updated on April 26. The original had a few errors. Thank you to Tom Barr at the AMS for help getting the correct numbers. Ok, so that title doesn’t tell you much. Two reports came out … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadening particpation in STEM, Federal support for science | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Meet the AMS Committee on Science Policy

Posted on April 11, 2019 by Karen Saxe

The AMS has five “policy” committees, which were established in 1993 to correspond to the five major areas in which the mission of the AMS is concentrated: Education, Meetings and Conferences, the Profession, Publications, and Science Policy. Each policy committee … Continue reading →

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Why care about the American Association for the Advancement of Science as an early-career mathematician?

Posted on March 19, 2019 by Karen Saxe

Editor’s note: Guest columnist Luis Sordo Vieira is a PhD mathematician and Postdoctoral Associate at The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, a SIAM Science Policy Fellow, and a member of AMS, SIAM, SMB, AACR, and AAAS. I had the pleasure of … Continue reading →

Posted in Advocacy, Communicating Mathematics, Graduate students | Tagged | 3 Comments

Mathematical Sciences and the NSF Big Ideas

Posted on March 7, 2019 by Karen Saxe

Editor’s note: Guest columnist Juan Meza is the Division Director of the NSF’s Division of Mathematical Sciences. Immediately before joining the NSF, he served as Dean of the School of Natural Sciences at the University of California, Merced. In 2016, the National … Continue reading →

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