Recess in Washington; Science Appropriations Update

Posted on August 8, 2018 by Karen Saxe

August is normally a time when all Congressional members return to their home districts. In DC, their staff members continue to work – meeting constituents, drafting legislation – and they have the opportunity to take more reflective time to consider their boss’s larger legislative agenda. This year, House members are taking this customary “August recess,” but the Senate has shortened theirs and will remain working in DC except for the week August 6-10 when they, too, will return home.

One of the items on the Senators to do list is to work on appropriations. Congress has until October 1 to pass all 12 appropriations bills (see below for explanation) and get them to the president’s desk for signature into law. There are only 11 legislative days on the calendar in which both chambers of Congress are in session before September 30. While Congressional leaders seem optimistic that appropriations process will wrap up during these 11 days (and – just saying – for the first time since 1996), there are significant potential roadblocks. President Trump may veto the final bill, as he is threatening to do if there is inadequate funding for a border wall. And, the November election and Supreme Court confirmation hearings could slowdown appropriations work. Even if the entire 11 days are devoted to appropriations, there is much work to be done before a bill is given to the President to consider signing into law establishing spending amounts for the fiscal year 2019 (FY19).

The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 guides the process by which Congress decides how much money to spend each year, what to spend it on, and how to raise money to pay for that spending.

The President is to release his or her budget proposal on the first Monday in February. The President recommends overall fiscal policy, with two main components: (1) how much the federal government should spend on public purposes, and (2) how much it should take in as tax revenues. The difference between (1) and (2) is the proposed deficit (or surplus). The President’s budget is very detailed, and lays out his or her relative priorities for federal programs — how much he or she believes should be spent on defense, agriculture, education, health, and so on.

The budget then works its way through each of the House and Senate. The President’s budget is only a request to Congress; Congress is not required to adopt his or her recommendations. Congress passes twelve appropriations bills annually. The House and Senate Budget Committees, working separately, establish top-line numbers for spending, with input from other legislators, committee chairs, and party leadership. Once these top-line numbers are established, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees begin their work. They take the spending target determined by the Budget Committees and divide it between the twelve appropriations subcommittees (one for each of the twelve bills that are to be passed each year).

The subcommittee — one of the twelve — that funds the NSF is Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (take a look at the House and Senate members, see if a member of your congressional delegation is one). This subcommittee’s jurisdiction includes other agencies such as NASA, NIST, NOAA, and OSTP, and also the Federal Prison Industries Incorporated and the Commission on Civil Rights, among other programs.

Figure 1

The budget process just described addresses the piece of the pie in Figure 1, labelled “discretionary” (30% in 2017). These programs are called “discretionary” because Congress must set funding levels for them each year through the appropriations process. In contrast, we have the “entitlement” or “mandatory” programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (the 63% wedge). Interest has been creeping up in recent years and we expect that trend to continue, thereby taking away funds in the other categories.

Discretionary funds are categorized as “defense” or “non-defense” (see Figure 2). In 2017, non-defense discretionary (NDD) spending accounted for 15% (\$610 billion) of federal spending (the other 15% of discretionary is defense related).

Figure 2

Science, environment, and energy programs constituted 12% (\$71 billion) of NDD spending in 2017. Just under half of the spending in this category supports conservation and the management of natural resources, such as national parks, and other environmental programs, including those in the Environmental Protection Agency. One-quarter of the spending covers NASA’s space exploration and related scientific research. The remaining spending supports the NSF and the Department of Energy, and water resources infrastructure.

For FY19, the President has proposed a 4% decrease (to \$7.47 billion) from FY18 for the NSF overall (see Figure 3). However, the House proposes a 5% increase, and the Senate proposed a 4% increase. The AMS is advocating for \$8.45 billion for the NSF; we have submitted written testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee giving this number, and our rationale for it.

Figure 3

Congress does not determine how the NSF divvies up its funds between research directorates with one exception – the Education and Human Resources (EHR) Directorate gets its own budget line and the President, House, and Senate proposed changes to the EHR budget are -3%, 0% and 1% respectively. The House Appropriations Committee approved its version of the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) appropriations bill that funds NSF on May 17, and the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its version on June 14. Next step is for each full chamber to vote on their respective bills. After that, the two are reconciled to produce the final bill presented to the President.

While Congress does not fund by directorate, the President’s budget proposal is very detailed. The largest proposed cut by the President is a decrease of 18% to the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction budget line. Among the directorates, there are significant variations, ranging from a 3.3 percent increase proposed for the Geosciences Directorate (GEO) to a 9.1 percent cut proposed for the Social, Behavioral, and Economics Sciences Directorate. The Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate (MPS) is slated for a cut of \$17 million or 1.3 percent. Inside MPS, sits the Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS) for which the President proposes a 6.3% cut. Most individual investigator awards for research in mathematics come from DMS.

For the first time the President is requesting dedicated funding for each of the NSF’s 10 Big Ideas: a total of \$343 million to be split among the directorates and the foundation’s other offices. While Congress does not specify how the NSF is to spend its appropriations, their bill language gives indications of what they want out of the NSF. Both House and Senate voice qualitative support for the Big Ideas. And both chambers highlight the need for significant investments in computing. The Senate also supports “core research” while the House expresses support for research centers and facilities. No mention is made specifically of mathematics research in the House Committee’s proposal. The Senate Committee does make one specific reference: it “recognizes the importance of the NSF Mathematical Sciences Institutes across the country, which provide important basic research in multiple fields.” Both versions refer to mathematics in the context of education and training the next generation of scientists.

While Congress finishes up its work on FY19 appropriations, the White House is moving on and issued the outline of its science priorities for 2020 on July 31. The FY20 Administration R&D Budget Priorities Memo identifies eight R&D topics for the federal government to prioritize:

  1. Security of the American People
  2. American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Information Sciences, and Strategic Computing
  3. American Connectivity and Autonomy
  4. American Manufacturing
  5. American Space Exploration & Commercialization
  6. American Energy Dominance
  7. American Medical Innovation
  8. American Agriculture

I will write more in this blogspot about this memo over the next weeks.

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It’s almost August — invite members of congress to visit your campus!

Posted on July 19, 2018 by Karen Saxe

Your senators and representatives spend significant amounts of time in their home districts and are eager to meet constituents (you!) on the ground. One week per month and the entire month of August are “recess” for the US Senate and House of Representatives. Your congressional delegation is typically working at home during these recess periods. The “congressional calendar” shows dates that you can expect your Senators and Representative to be at home.

Visiting members of Congress in Washington, DC, is great, and we certainly encourage you to do so. But, visits at home can give great value to you, your college or university, the AMS, and the larger science community.

Congressional members (find yours here) are concerned with the health of the institutions of higher education in their districts and are proud of these institutions’ research accomplishments and the students educated. They want stories to tell about inspiring students, and innovative programs (research and teaching) at their two- and four-year colleges and research universities. How do they get these stories? One way is that constituents (like you) bring compelling stories to their attention. We can take responsibility by sharing about individual student’s paths to and through college; interesting STEM education initiatives on campus; and the great innovations coming out of our research programs.

AMS President Ken Ribet (light-colored sweater) and other UC Berkeley faculty and students host US Congressman Jerry McNerney (blazer).

As an example, AMS President Ken Ribet (light-colored sweater) and other UC Berkeley faculty and students hosted US Congressman Jerry McNerney (blazer). Representative McNerney is a PhD mathematician and an advocate for mathematics and mathematicians in Congress. After breakfast, Congressman McNerney toured engineering facilities, led by nuclear engineering graduate student Marissa Zweig (white sleeveless).

What should you do if you want to invite a Congressional member to campus?

  • Think of what physical facilities you will show them (a spiffy new science center, a particular lab or institute that is federally funded, a conference you are holding on campus which they might attend and be invited to give some remarks, etc.).
  • Think about who will be a part of the visit (undergraduates from the district who have overcome odds to be where they are, students engaging in interesting projects, early career faculty members, etc.).
  • Think about who you should team up with (faculty in other departments, etc.).
  • Talk with the folks in your government relations office, and this is best done in advance of all planning you do. Most universities and many colleges have such an office and they can give you ideas, and provide support. At the least, they will want to know if a Congressional member is going to be on campus, PLEASE let them know!

Final words:

  • Do not think only of federal legislators; we also encourage you to invite state and other local politicians to campus!
  • In addition to working with your government relations office (if you have one), the AMS Office of Government Relations can help you craft your visit. Contact us at: amsdc@ams.org

Final, final words (easy first steps to take):

  • You can begin the process of engagement with policy issues by participating in webinars. There is one scheduled for July 26 at 2 pm. It is run by DC colleagues whom I work with regularly. Register for the webinar here. From their description: “This experienced panel will explain not only why continuing the dialogue in the district is essential, but also offer suggestions, advice and share experiences about a range of ways for scientist to engage with elected officials while they are home in their districts, such as inviting Members and their staff to campus to see first-hand the NSF-funded research and meet with researchers and students.” I’ll be there, so feel free to send questions to me (kxs@ams.org) after the webinar.
  • Take a look at the “Engineers & Scientists Acting Locally” website. Have a look at their checklist, and if you take action, submit a postcard.
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The Supreme Court has decided on gerrymandering, what does it mean for the math & stats community?

Posted on June 28, 2018 by Karen Saxe

What is going on with the Supreme Court vis-à-vis gerrymandering?

The Supreme Court justices are busy finishing up their current term and the past weeks have seen decisions handed down on gerrymandering cases.

To get you up to speed, the court considered cases from three states during its 2017 term:

Information about these, and all Supreme Court cases for the 2017 term can be found at www.scotusblog.com/case-files/terms/ot2017/

The first two cases focused on partisan gerrymandering and the third on racial gerrymandering. Decisions for the partisan claims had the potential to usher in sweeping changes in the way map-makers draw district lines and, in fact, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said that Gill v. Whitford  is the most important case the court would hear this term.

In August I wrote a little bit about the Wisconsin case and more in the January Notices of the AMS.

Incidentally, there were other cases considered that have to do with voting rights including one examining the process Ohio uses to remove voters on change-of-residence grounds, and one having to do with what voters can wear to polling places in Minnesota.

But what happened with the important Wisconsin and Maryland cases? In short, the Wisconsin case charged that Republicans had done the rigging, while in Maryland the Democrats were accused. The justices’ opinions for both were announced on June 18; by announcing their decisions in the two cases at the same time, they are able to appear not to favor one party over another. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the Wisconsin opinion and the Maryland opinion was per curiam.

Why are these decisions important to the mathematics and statistics community?

Amy Howe writes that with these two cases on their docket, “there were high hopes that the justices would finally weigh in definitively on challenges to the practice of purposely drawing maps to favor one party at the expense of another – either by holding that courts should steer clear of such claims or by laying out standards for courts to use in evaluating them.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy was the pivotal judge; he believes that courts could have a role in partisan gerrymandering cases if a workable standard for evaluating them were to be found (see pages 10-11 of the Gill v. Whitford opinion). Justice Kennedy was not persuaded by arguments this term, and the status quo remains.

Had the Wisconsin case gone differently, it could, for example, have deemed the efficiency gap to be a workable standard. The mathematics community has not come together around this particular standard, nor any other quantitative measure of partisan fairness. However, our community is focusing on a general approach, which we refer to as “outlier analysis.” See below for more on this approach.

Over the past year, the AMS Council has approved a joint statement with the American Statistical Association on the role of the mathematical sciences in redistricting and the AMS has become a partner of the ASA’s Count on Stats initiative which educates about, supports and advocates for the use of sound statistical science by federal agencies (including, of course, the Census Bureau whose work is foundational for redistricting).

Researchers could/should take these Supreme Court decisions as a “call to action.”

Read the last paragraph of this article in The Hill!

We need to continue to:

  • Improve our methods so that – one day – map-drawers, Supreme Court justices, and other key players will be able to effectively use mathematics and statistics to create (partisanly speaking) “fair” voting districts. (There are, of course, teams of researchers working on this problem already.)
  • Educate – before 2020 – about the strengths of our approaches to the problem of partisan gerrymandering so that map-drawers will choose to adopt them, even without a Supreme Court decision (by, for example, giving talks in our local communities at schools, churches, senior centers; writing op eds; getting involved actually drawing maps if possible).

 And, finally, where do we mathematicians and statisticians go from here?

As mentioned, researchers in the mathematics and statistics community have been developing a general approach to evaluate partisan gerrymandering that can be explained – very roughly – as follows.

The starting point is census data and a proposed map you are trying to evaluate for partisan qualities. Then:

  1. Create a large “ensemble” of possible alternative maps.
  2. Apply a metric to each map in the ensemble, to assess partisan bias of the map.
  3. Make a histogram of this metric (horizontal axis shows range of values of metric; vertical axis shows percentage of maps in the ensemble with the different values of the metric).
  4. Ask the question: Is the proposed map an outlier in this histogram? If yes, consider it designed with partisan bias and reject it.

If we were to know the partisan metric(s) of all possible redistricting maps, then we could make statements about whether the partisan metric(s) of the proposed map is an outlier. However, there are way too many possible maps.

Central to this “outlier analysis” is the ability to generate a large number of different possible alternative maps (step 1). The goal is to create a large ensemble of maps each of which is “reasonable” in the sense that it:

  • gets within some small margin of error for equal population,
  • is composed of districts that are compact according to some measure (Polsby-Popper is often used),
  • is composed of districts that are contiguous, and
  • respects political (e.g. county) boundaries.

There are competing algorithms out there for generating the ensemble, and this is an active research area. Look for the work of Jowei Chen (Michigan) and Jonathan Rodden (Stanford); Wendy Cho (UIUC); Kosuke Imai and Benjamin Fifield (Princeton); Alan Frieze (Carnegie Mellon), Wesley Pegden (Carnegie Mellon), and Maria Chikina (Pittsburgh); Jonathan Mattingly (Duke).

The metric (step 2) could be the well-established mean-median score or the relatively new efficiency gap (as proposed in the Wisconsin case). The metric instead could be number of seats that would be won by each party, if the map were adopted, based on past election results.

This procedure and analysis can be done – up front – as line-drawers are drawing their maps in 2020 or in court later, when maps are challenged. I prefer it be done up front and court challenges avoided. Researchers can continue to perfect the algorithms used for creating ensembles and continue to run simulations to evaluate the pros and cons of the various metrics.

All this said, we have to be very careful: Justice Roberts wrote (pages 20-21 of the Gill v. Whitford opinion) about the efficiency gap and other such metrics:

The difficulty for standing purposes is that these calculations are an average measure. They do not address the effect that a gerrymander has on the votes of particular citizens. Partisan-asymmetry metrics such as the efficiency gap measure something else entirely: the effect that a gerrymander has on the fortunes of political parties. …….. this Court is not responsible for vindicating generalized partisan preferences. The Court’s constitutionally prescribed role is to vindicate the individual rights of the people appearing before it.

This tells me that at least some justices will never adopt our outlier analysis because it can only determine if the parties are treated “fairly” or “symmetrically” by maps in question. If you are going for a “deep” read of this opinion, be sure to also read Justice Elena Kagan’s concurrence, which addresses this issue of individual harm done (the “one person, one vote” context) by partisan gerrymandering and lays out a plan for how future claims could be argued successfully.

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Origami meets math, science, and engineering

Posted on June 7, 2018 by Karen Saxe

MSRI Director David Eisenbud, Erik Demaine, AMS Government Relations Director Karen Saxe, and AMS President-elect Jill Pipher.

This is the enticing title of the most recent Congressional briefing, sponsored jointly by the AMS and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute.

On May 22, Professor Erik Demaine of MIT (a MacArthur Fellow “genius”) wowed the audience with surprising – and a surprisingly wide range of – applications of computational origami in manufacturing, robotics, public safety, space technology, and medicine.

Ingestible robot, developed by the research team of Demaine’s MIT colleague Daniela Rus. See: news.mit.edu/2016/ingestible-origami-robot-0512

We saw life-saving car airbags that are folded based on origami. We saw very large telescopes that fold to fit on space stations and then expand for use once in space. We saw deployable origami bulletproof shields that police and other keepers of our public safety can use, for example, during mass shooting situations. We saw a tiny origami robot that unfolds itself from a swallowed capsule and has the potential to transform internal medicine.

The briefing took place in the Russell Senate Office Building in a room secured for us by Senator Charles Schumer’s staff; we appreciate very much their support. We were fortunate to have a strong show of AMS leadership in the room – President Ken Ribet travelled from California, President-elect Jill Pipher from Rhode Island, and Vice President Ken Ono from Georgia.

I kicked off the event welcoming everyone.  MSRI Director David Eisenbud followed with a few words about both the two sponsoring groups and the goal for our briefings. He then introduced Representative Jerry McNerney who spoke about the importance of federal funding for research.

Erik Demaine and Congressman (and mathematician) Jerry McNerney.

McNerney is a Ph.D. mathematician (the only one in the current Congress), strong supporter of Congressional funding for fundamental research in mathematics and science, and vocal advocate for evidence-based policy-making. He is also an AMS member! We are extremely grateful for his presence at this briefing. AMS President Ken Ribet then introduced Erik Demaine.

Professor Demaine forcefully articulated two key messages:

  • mathematics touches a truly wide variety of other scientific and engineering fields, and
  • it is not always straightforward to predict what types of fundamental research will ultimately lead to innovations that improve our national security and save lives.

It is, therefore, critical that the federal government fund research that may – at times – seem abstract and potentially even silly. Investing in computational origami and much of theoretical mathematics may seem, by nature, somewhat risky but the examples in our briefings show what can happen with sustained funding from federal agencies. Investment in basic research is critical for reasons of economic and national security, and global competitiveness. Much of the research in mathematics is carried out by faculty members working in academia; our research universities have been the envy of the world and must remain so.

The talk was timely in the sense that Congress is currently in the midst of appropriations conversations for FY2019 funding. On May 17, the House Appropriations Committee approved the fiscal year 2019 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill on a vote of 32-19. The bill includes $8.175 billion for the National Science Foundation for FY2019. After years of funding levels that have not kept pace with inflation, this proposed increase of over 5% is a welcome and much-needed step forward to effectively supporting an agency that is vital to our economy, national security, and global competitiveness. The Senate has not yet released its NSF funding proposal. The President has proposed $7.5 billion (a 4% decrease) but Congress usually does not follow the administration’s suggestions. The AMS, as part of a large coalition of science societies and universities, is asking for $8.45 billion. I will write soon about how these deliberations unfold.

Curved Crease Sculpture, Erik & Martin Demaine, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2012.

MacArthur Fellow Erik Demaine has been instrumental in the development of the field of computational origami. He is also an acclaimed artist. His works have been shown at major museums, and his pieces are in the permanent collections of Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian Renwick Gallery and New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

This briefing was just one a series of such. Other recent briefings include one by David Donoho (Stanford) on compressed sensing and MRI technology, and by Shafi Goldwasser (Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at the University of California, Berkeley) on cryptography.

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Take action today!!! Petition to protect graduate students has June 1 deadline

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Karen Saxe

SCROLL DOWN TO READ ABOUT & LINK TO THE PETITION, or use this Direct Link to PETITION (described below)

Congress is currently working on a re-authorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA). This law, first enacted in 1965, is the basic federal law intended to increase accessibility to higher education.

Specifically, it authorizes numerous federal aid programs that provide support to both individuals pursuing a post-secondary education and institutions of higher education. The HEA is organized into eight titles:

  • Title I, General Provisions;
  • Title II, Teacher Quality Enhancement;
  • Title III, Strengthening Institutions;
  • Title IV, Student Assistance;
  • Title V, Developing Institutions;
  • Title VI, International Education Programs;
  • Title VII, Graduate and Postsecondary Improvement Programs; and
  • Title VIII, Additional Programs.

The HEA was last comprehensively reauthorized in 2008, though it has been amended over the past decade. It really needs to be reauthorized.

So, where are we in the reauthorization process?

On December 12, 2017, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce approved — along party lines — the Promoting Real Opportunity, Success, and Prosperity through Education Reform Act (PROSPER Act; H.R. 4508), which would provide for the comprehensive re-authorization of the HEA.

It is now up to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) to come up with their version of this bill.

Once the Senate introduces their version, the two versions need reconciled. When a final version is approved by both House and Senate, the President will be asked to sign into law.

What are some concerns about the PROSPER Act?

Higher education advocates are speaking out against the PROSPER Act. According to the American Council on Education (ACE): “While the bill includes several valuable proposals, these are greatly outweighed by multiple provisions that would be harmful to higher education, and particularly to low- and middle-income students.” ACE has a resource page with information about the bill along with links to contact House members on provisions of interest to undergraduates, graduate students, graduates and student loan borrowers, and higher education institutions.

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) has voiced its concerns about the bill. They are most concerned about elimination of

  • the in-school interest subsidy on undergraduate loans,
  • the Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants (SEOG), and
  • Graduate PLUS loans.

The first is the subsidy that ensures interest does not accrue on undergraduate loans while one is enrolled as a graduate student (I know I benefitted from this subsidy). Over 1.6 million low-income students benefit from SEOGs, and there is no proposed substitute for this grant aid. The elimination of PLUS loans would force more students to private market lending opportunities, which often offer less favorable terms and interest rates.

There are other provisions of the PROSPER Act that are harmful to education. Three examples:

  • The bill further erodes the Pell grant program by misguided investment strategy. Today a Pell Grant covers under 30 percent of a four-year public university degree while in 1980 it was 75 percent.
  • It eliminates TEACH grants that help students who agree to teach at schools that serve low-income families.
  • It also eliminates the 90/10 rule, which will enhance predatory behavior by for-profit schools. This rule contains a loophole that hurts veterans, but veteran groups have spoken out in favor of closing the loophole and not eliminating the rule altogether.

What can you do to voice your concerns?

  • Sign this petition. The American Physical Society (APS) is coordinating a petition opposing the bill and is asking those at colleges and universities across the country to sign on. The APS will deliver the petition to Senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Patty Murray of Washington. They lead the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) that is drafting its version of the bill. The petition asks them to maintain the loans the House PROSPER Act would cut, and not to increase the financial burden on graduate students through its bill. They are collecting signatures until June 1, so there is still time to add your name to the list!
  • Write personal letters to key Senators. In addition to Chairman Lamar Alexander and Ranking Member Patty Murray, members of the HELP Committee are Senators Enzi, Burr, Isakson, Paul, Collins, Cassidy, Young, Hatch, Roberts, Murkowski, Scott, Sanders, Casey, Bennet, Baldwin, Murphy, Warren, Kaine, Hassan, Smith, and Jones. The Committee website gives links to their official websites which will, in turn, give you instructions on how to submit letters. If you live in one of their districts, write your Representative. If you do not live in one of their districts, write to the Chairman and Ranking Member.
  • Write an op ed. If you would like to write an op ed, feel free to reach out to me for advice. In any case, the op eds (read next paragraph) are good models, and check in with the AMS advice page on writing op eds. If you live in a HELP members’ state, an op ed is especially meamingful.

Graduate students have been articulating their concerns in op eds around the country. In the Knoxville News Sentinel, Masters student Justin Powell writes about how the bill would hurt students; Shua Sanchez, a first-generation Ph.D. student, adds to this in his opinion piece in the Spokesman Review, explaining how it would not only hurt graduate students but also would devastate scientific advancement.

These graduate students join political commentators in their opposition to the PROSPER Act – Mildred Garcia and Peter McPherson opine in The Hill, and Georgetown policy professor John Brooks in the New York Times.

While the deadline for the petition is June 1, there is plenty of time for letter-writing and op ed writing!

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My AMS internship in the Washington, DC office

Posted on May 23, 2018 by Karen Saxe

Editor’s Note: This is the second of two consecutively posted pieces by the AMS Office of Government Relations AY2017-18 student interns. As you will read, Eliot is an undergraduate at the University of Maryland.

My name is Eliot Melder, and I have been an intern at the American Mathematical Society’s Office of Government Relations for the past six months as part of the University of Maryland Global Fellows in Washington, D.C. Science Diplomacy program. During my time with the AMS, I’ve had the chance to work on important projects and apply skills I’ve learned in my classes, as well as engage in the political process and travel to the hill several times to meet with key figures and attend briefings. This internship has been an incredible experience overall, and I’m grateful to both the AMS and the Fellows program for giving me this opportunity.

A little about me: I’m a sophomore at the University of Maryland, College Park studying computer science and math. I’m taking classes in algorithm design and automata theory, and I’m a TA for discrete mathematics. My ultimate goal is to go to grad school for automata theory or another branch of computer science theory.

After becoming the intern at the AMS Office of Government Relations in October, I was given my first major project, which was to provide an analysis of National Science Foundation funding by state, on both relative and per-capita scales. I was also tasked with determining which states would gain, retain, or lose eligibility for the NSF EPSCoR (https://www.nsf.gov/od/oia/programs/epscor/) assistance program if the eligibility criterion was shifted from percentage-based to per-capita-based. This project was motivated by the introduction of a bill in Congress known as the Smarter EPSCoR Act, which – if enacted – would apply this change.

My first instinct as a CS student was to write a program. So I did – I wrote a program to read through the award data, then computed the average funding per state and per capita and determined EPSCoR eligibility for each state based on these numbers. I determined which states would gain and lose eligibility if the system were to switch.

The EPSCoR project was my first real chance to apply my computer science skills to a real-world problem. I was able to apply principles of data collection and analysis from my courses, and produce results that had an impact on policy decisions.

My second large project was updating nine of the Coalition for National Science Funding’s “State Sheets” (https://cnsf.us/factsheets2017.cfm), which are two-page brief sheets showcasing NSF-funded research in each state and providing statistics about funding information. The sheets are updated yearly with new data. Updating the state sheets was a more relaxed and fun project, and I was able to see many examples of interesting research.

My final major project was to create a detailed breakdown, by agency, of federal government spending for mathematical research. Again, I had the chance to apply my computer science skills; I wrote a program to sift through lists of millions of recent grants published on spending.gov and pick out the mathematical ones based on the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) number assigned to each grant, as well as the description text. I then organized each grant by agency and produced a breakdown of mathematically related grants by agency. We discovered some enlightening results, including that the Federal Highway Administration awards many mathematically related grants.

The grant breakdown project was an excellent chance for me to apply the concepts I have learned this year in my classes at the University of Maryland. I have studied text pattern matching, Ruby scripting, and input processing this semester, and I was able to incorporate these ideas into my program for the project and discover useful information hidden in the data.

I have also had the chance to go to the Hill and attend briefings, meetings, and panels about policy issues on which the AMS is interested. Among the events I have been lucky enough to attend are a panel hosted by Scientific American and featuring Rep. Jerry McNerney, and a private briefing on cryptography for Senators Blumenthal, Nelson, Schumer and Shaheen. This internship has given me the chance to become more closely involved in politics than I ever thought possible, and I have had many valuable and amazing experiences throughout.

I am grateful to the AMS and the UMD Global Fellows program for giving me this opportunity. I have had a fantastic seven months working at the office, and I want to thank my coworkers here at the Office of Government Relations for making each workday great. I look forward to continuing my involvement with the AMS beyond the end of my internship in May, and using this experience as a starting point to achieve my mathematical goals in the future.

Posted in AMS Washington office, Higher Education, Internship | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The NSF is taking action against sexual harassment in science

Posted on April 24, 2018 by Karen Saxe

Editor’s Note: This will be the first of two pieces by the AMS Office of Government Relations AY2017-18 student interns. Abby Quick is working on her M.A. in Mathematics at American University. She is recipient of the 2017 Hanna Miriam Sandler and Bella Sandler Scholarship Award.

As part of a growing movement in the scientific community—and society at large—the National Science Foundation (NSF) is taking action to combat sexual harassment in research environments. The agency is the primary funding source for fundamental science and engineering research in the United States, and thus has power to influence science culture by affecting policies and practices at institutions across the country. In a notice released February 8th, the agency announced they are taking the following steps:

  • proposing new reporting requirements for incidents of assault and harassment;
  • setting expectations that grantee organizations have clear standards of behavior and notification pathways for all personnel under a funded project; and
  • creating a web portal with resources to help institutions develop policies, procedures, and codes of conduct that promote a safe and equitable research environment.

Photo by Jeanne Theismann.

Under the proposed reporting policy, a new term and condition for awards would require organizations to report to the agency any findings that a Principal Investigator (PI), co-PI, or any other grant personnel violated the organization’s policies on sexual harassment, any other kind of harassment, or sexual assault. Awardees would also be required to report if they place a PI or co-PI on administrative leave relating to a harassment finding or investigation. The agency then has the authority to remove or replace the individual in question, or to suspend, terminate, or reduce funding.

The NSF has long had the authority to intervene, but they could only act when an incident was voluntarily reported; the new policy would make reporting a requirement. The web portal will give individuals the ability to report incidents or investigations directly to NSF in the event that an organization is not responding appropriately to a complaint.

In February, Rhonda Davis, head of the NSF’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI), discussed the agency’s efforts at a hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, entitled “A Review of Sexual Harassment and Misconduct in Science.” She expressed the agency’s goal to “eliminate unsafe research environments that upset the whole balance of the science ecosystem, harm our scientists, and impede the very progress of science itself.”

Experts testifying on the issue of sexual harassment in the sciences before the Research and Technology Subcommittee of the House Science Committee. Left to right: Rhonda Davis, Kathryn Clancy, Kristina Larsen, and Christine McEntee. (Image credit: National Science Foundation)

Witnesses at the hearing discussed how the hierarchical nature of academic research can perpetuate a culture of abuse. The student-advisor paradigm, for example, means a student is often reliant on a single superior for support and career advancement. Therefore, if an advisor is not responsive to complaints of abuse or is him/herself the abuser, a student may have trouble finding a pathway to reporting or could face consequences that jeopardize his/her career. If the abuser is prominent in the research community or a big money-maker for the university, other faculty and administrators may also dismiss complaints, sweep them under the rug, or retaliate against victims.

At the hearing, Rep. Dan Lipinski (IL-3) expressed concern that the NSF’s new reporting requirements could “chill investigations of assault.” He wondered whether universities, out of fear of losing star researchers or compromising grant money, might be reluctant to report findings or even to initiate investigations in the first place, lest they find misconduct they would be required to report.

Ms. Davis explained that the agency’s new web portal allows anyone to report incidents and investigations directly to the NSF, whether it be a victim of abuse, a faculty member, a professional society, etc. She noted that the agency considered the possibility of this chilling effect, but they believe that, in the midst of this cultural movement to eradicate sexual harassment, a university’s decision to cover up abuses “could be at their own peril.”

The NSF is seeking public comment on the proposed reporting requirement through May 4th.

 

 

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Trump v. Hawaii, why should we care?

Posted on April 9, 2018 by Karen Saxe

On the last day of oral arguments of the current term, April 25, the Supreme Court will examine President Trump’s third travel ban. Specifically, the justices will consider the validity of Presidential Proclamation 9645 (September 24, 2017), captioned “Enhancing Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry into the United States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats.” This ban is currently in effect, and revised two earlier bans.

This version of the ban places restrictions on those traveling to the United States who are nationals of one of seven countries: Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.

The following chart (from the amicus brief discussed below) shows the breakdown of visitors from these countries:

# of Students # of Scholars Total
Chad 66 4 70
Iran 12,643 1,977 14,620
Libya 1,311 64 1,375
North Korea 8 0 8
Somalia 50 5 55
Syria 827 123 950
Venezuela 8,540 269 8,809
Yemen 658 17 675
TOTAL 24,103 2,459 26,562

 

The rules for the countries vary, but here are a few examples:

“The entry into the United States of nationals of Chad, as immigrants, and as nonimmigrants on business (B-1), tourist (B-2), and business/tourist (B-1/B-2) visas, is hereby suspended.”

“The entry into the United States of nationals of Iran as immigrants and as nonimmigrants is hereby suspended, except that entry by such nationals under valid student (F and M) and exchange visitor (J) visas is not suspended, although such individuals should be subject to enhanced screening and vetting requirements.”

“The entry into the United States of nationals of Syria as immigrants and nonimmigrants is hereby suspended.”

The Fact Sheet issued by the Department of Homeland Security is a handy place to learn more about the President’s three travel bans.

Those of us who care about higher education in this country should take careful note. A group of 33 higher education associations joined forces and recently submitted an amicus brief in the case to be heard on April 25.

Here are a few data highlights from their brief:

  • There are more than one million international students studying in the United States and they make up about 5.3% of all students in this country in higher education. All types of schools, everywhere in the country, host international students. The University of California, Los Angeles hosts about 12,000 international students. Private schools also have many international students: Rice University hosts over 1,600. And, two-year colleges are also welcome hosts: there are about 7,700 international students at Northern Virginia Community College.
  • In 2013, international students accounted for 39% of Ph.D. students in STEM fields and this is predicted to climb to 50% by 2020.
  • From fall 2016 to fall 2017 there was a decline in the number of international students and the National Science Foundation has noted a 2.2% drop in undergraduates and a 5.5% drop in graduate students. The highest declines are in applications from the Middle East.
  • Canada, Britain, France and Germany have all launched funding programs to recruit researchers from the United States. The most popular study destination choices by all applicants this year are: the US (48%), the UK (42%), Canada (34%), Australia (28%) and Germany (28%).

While the largest drop in new applications is from potential students from the Middle East, the amicus brief states that the President’s order “sends a clarion message of exclusion to millions around the globe that America’s doors are no longer open to foreign students, scholars, lecturers, and researchers.” The travel bans send an unwelcoming message and will deter students and scholars from all over the world – not only from the countries currently included in the ban – from travelling to and from the U.S.

The State Department issued 393,573 student visas (F-1s) in the year that ended on September 30, 2017. This is a decline of 17% from the previous year and about 40% below the 2015 peak. Part of this drop is due to a change for Chinese students – their visas are now good for 5 years instead of 1, meaning fewer visas are issued each year. But, still, if China is taken out of the mix, the one year decline from 2016 to 2017 is 13%.

In a previous post, I argued that mathematics and engineering are at risk of being hit especially hard by decreasing applications from abroad. And, further, that Master’s degree programs in mathematics might be especially hard hit.

The arguments in the amicus brief against the President’s order are not unfamiliar to us, and include:

  1. Colleges and universities rely on the global exchange of people and ideas to push forward the knowledge frontier. The U.S. must maintain its deep commitment to ensuring the free flow of ideas taking place in our classrooms and labs and at conferences around the world. The international community of scholars has been built over decades and policies such as this travel ban threaten its strength and could very well lead to slower progress addressing global challenges.
  2. International students and scholars strengthen our economy. It is estimated that international students contributed roughly $37 billion dollars to the U.S. economy during the 2016-17 academic year and created or supported 450,000 jobs during that period.
  3. Educating foreign-born students and collaboration with foreign-born scholars provide an “opportunity to promote the ideals that, together, make up the social, political, and cultural fabric of this country.” Academic visitors to the U.S. are exposed to our democratic principles and values, which are then transmitted around the world when the individuals return to their home countries.

Harvard graduate student Ziad Reslan wrote passionately about his fear and sorrow following one of the earlier travel bans; he also articulates what the U.S. has to lose by closing its doors to such students:

After spending a few years here, we go back home with affectionate knowledge of Americans and their culture. We serve as diplomats of American culture, as informal advisers, as cultural bridges. It will now be harder to sell the American dream of a nation blind to religion and creed back home. It will be harder still to defend U.S. foreign policy, when America bars citizens of the very countries its military has targeted.

It is not just isolated graduate students writing. Over 43,000 supporters including over 31,000 academics, 62 Nobel Laureates, and 146 winners of prestigious prizes such as the Fields Medal signed an online petition denouncing President Trump’s ban. [You are welcome to sign.]

In a previous case, (Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 2012), the Supreme Court justices have asserted that the “history of the United States is in part made of the stories, talents, and lasting contributions of those who crossed oceans and deserts to come here.” Let’s hope this sentiment is at the forefront of the justices’ minds on April 25.

 

 

 

 

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We (probably) have a budget for 2018; what’s in it for the mathematical sciences?

Posted on March 23, 2018 by Karen Saxe

It has been a (very) busy week, budget-wise! On Wednesday evening, the House introduced its (very) long 2,232-page omnibus spending bill. On Thursday, the House passed it and in the (very) early hours of this morning (Friday at roughly 12:30 a.m.) the Senate passed it.

Now what? Breaking news reports that President Trump is threatening to veto it while the White House indicates he will sign. Probably by the time you are reading this, we know if he did or didn’t sign. If he signs it today, we will avoid another government shutdown and end the FY2018 budget negotiations.

The National Science Foundation’s overall funding level was increased to \$7.767 billion (a 4% increase over FY2017), and the Research & Related Activities (R&RA) account was funded at \$6.334 billion (5.5% increase).  The Directorate of Education and Human Resources has its own budget line and this is increased to \$902 million (3.3% increase). We do not know yet how the R&RA funds will be distributed across NSF Directorates. To put this in a bit of perspective, the President had originally proposed an 11% cut to the NSF; Congress did not accept this and instead proposed a 2% cut. The February  Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 made new funds available and this ultimately led to the 4% increase.

While most federal funding for mathematics research comes from the NSF, over 30% comes from other agencies. The chart below (credit to Matt Hourihan, AAAS) shows that science overall received very good news with this budget.

The House summary notes that the bill increases “funding for research grants at the National Science Foundation (\$301M above FY17) to foster innovation, particularly in areas like advanced manufacturing, physics, mathematics, cybersecurity, neuroscience, and STEM education.” This appears to bode well for the mathematical sciences.

Congress does not decide how much each Directorate gets. The NSF determines the distribution of the R&RA funds between the disciplinary areas (this will include for the Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS), which sits inside the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS)). Once the President signs the budget into law, they will set to work; we might expect to know their plan in a few months (June?). It is, however, important to note that key players — including​ House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith — are interested in having a say about how the NSF allocates its funds among Directorate (in particular, there is an interest by some to move funds away from the Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) and from the Geosciences Directorate (GEO)).

In the meantime, the NSF has released it FY2019 budget proposal. More on that in future posts.

Am I glad this week is over? (very)

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Act Today to Help Ensure Adequate Federal Funding for Math Research!

Posted on March 9, 2018 by Karen Saxe

This post is a “call to action” and if you are going to act, you need to do so asap (ideally by March 12)! I hope the following explains what I am asking you to do, and also how you can easily do this (perhaps skip ahead to the 3 steps “What exactly do you do?”, then return and read the red text).

The American Mathematical Society’s priority for Congressional appropriations is for robust and sustained National Science Foundation (NSF) funding. The total amount we are requesting for FY2019 is $8.45 billion; this is the same amount as the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF). CNSF is an alliance of over 130 science related organizations committed to increasing the national investment in science.

To arrive at this funding amount, we are using $8 billion as a base funding level, which is the CNSF community target funding level for FY2018.  As we have done in previous years, we are using the guiding principle found in both the “Restoring the Foundation” report (American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2014), and in “Innovation: An American Imperative,” which calls for four-percent real growth (which is four-percent plus inflation).

As you probably know, the NSF is an independent agency created by Congress in 1950 “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense.” Flat funding, as the President requests, will inhibit our national competitiveness and continue to jeopardize America’s role as an innovation leader.

Representatives G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) and David McKinley (R-WV) have teamed-up again this year and are writing the FY19 NSF “Dear Colleague Letter.” This letter will be sent to Representatives John Culberson and Jose Serrano, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Committee on Appropriations subcommittee, and key decision-makers in this process to allocate funds to the NSF.

The deadline for sign-on is Wednesday, March 14, 2018 at 1:00 p.m. Members of Congress interested in signing on to the FY19 NSF Dear Colleague Letter should contact Dennis Sills in Representative Butterfield’s office at dennis.sills@mail.house.gov or Christopher Buki in Representative McKinley’s office at Christopher.buki@mail.house.gov

The level of support for the National Science Foundation is a key factor by which the nation’s commitment to science can be measured and as such makes the annual appropriations process a high priority for the AMS Office of Government Relations. Approximately 64% of total federal support for academic research in mathematics comes from the NSF (making math one of the most NSF-dependent fields).

What exactly do you do?

Step 1. Find your Representative(s): https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

Step 2. Go to your Representative’s website to see how to send a letter to them.

Step 3. Take the text that appears above in red and edit to craft a letter to your Representative in the House (if you live and work in different districts, hit both). At the least, add in a sentence or two at the beginning saying your name, your institution, and point out the fact that you are a mathematician (if you are an AMS member, mention that too). If you have or have recently benefitted from NSF funding, I encourage you to add a bit about it. Alternatively, if your department has benefitted in some broad way (e.g. as an REU site), add a sentence or two about the program and its importance to training the next generation of mathematicians. At the end, thank your Rep for his/her attention and consideration.

If you would like, you could add this example to your letter: At the most recent AMS/MSRI Congressional briefing in December, we highlighted NSF-funded mathematical research that improves cybersecurity. At our June 2017 briefing, we highlighted NSF-funded mathematical research that has brought revolutionary changes to MRI technology, saving lives and money. You can read about these, and other Congressional briefings on mathematics here: http://www.ams.org/government/outreach/CongressBriefingAMSMSRIdec2017

Feel free to email me (kxs@ams.org) if you have questions, or want help.

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