Pegram Lecture

One thing just leads to another. Relatively early in my career I was fortunate enough to be appointed to the Scientific Advisory Committee of IBM, during a time when IBM had such a thing. As a "token chemist" on this committee, this experience opened my eyes to a much wider world than chemistry; it led to my service for six years (1992-1998) as a member of the National Science Board (NSB) of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the last two years as its chair. During the time I was chair of NSB, I made an official visit to China and met with the Director of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and gained their trust. This led to my service in 2011-2012 as chair of an international committee to assess the performance of NSFC. To my surprise and delight many of my committee's recommendations have been adopted. Presently, I am chairing COSEPUP, the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy of the three academies, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. I want to share with you some of the high and low points of these ventures into trying to shape public science policy in China and in the US.