CEE Grad Student Timothy Nsubuga Advocates for Engineering in Washington
Content
Graduate student Timothy Nsubuga of the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department was one of four graduate students from UMass Amherst who attended the Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering (CASE) workshop on March 26 through 29 in Washington, D.C. The workshop, hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), introduced students to the federal policy making process and trained them in strategies to communicate research effectively to policy makers. Then Nsubuga and his UMass colleagues applied their newfound advocacy skills on staff members from the offices of various U.S. senators and representatives. See Graduate Students Travel to Washington to Advocate for Science.
On the final day of the conference, Nsubuga and UMass graduate students Raymond Caraher and Katrina Zarrella Smith tried out their advocacy skills, honed from three days of intensive training, in meetings with congressional staff from the offices of Senators Ed Markey, Susan Collins, and Elizabeth Warren, as well as staff from Representatives Jake Auchincloss and Jim McGovern.
For Nsubuga the CASE workshop deepened his thinking about the intersection of his special field of interest – environmental and water resources engineering – and government policy.
As Nsubuga says about the momentous experience, “My biggest takeaway from the AAAS CASE Workshop is that science does not lead to one clear policy, but that opinions based on science can help create a set of viable policies. Thank you, AAAS, for bringing graduate students from different fields together to learn about and engage with science policy.”
According to Nsubuga, “In the future, I hope to interpret and communicate science so that I can help develop potential solutions to our most pressing environmental issues. In the meantime, I will continue to learn about current energy and environmental policy issues.”
Nsubuga concludes that “I am enthusiastic about science communication and will continue to pursue various academic and extracurricular opportunities to hone my skills.”
In one of several volunteer activities related to his interest in science advocacy, since April of 2022, Nsubuga has served as a general member of the Western Massachusetts Science for the People organization, which is dedicated to building a social movement around progressive and radical perspectives on science and society.
In terms of his science and engineering background, Nsubuga began pursuing his M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering at UMass Amherst in the Fall of 2021. Prior to that, he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Physics with a Minor Degree in Geoscience from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Nsubuga says he became interested in environmental and water resources engineering after taking an introductory Geoscience course in “Watershed Hydrology” at Holy Cross. In general, his research currently focuses on water quality modeling of the Lake Warner Mill River Watershed of Hampshire County. As one example of this research, Nsubuga is trying to understand the relationship between hydrology, watershed land use, and transport of pollutants through urban, agricultural, and rural tributaries.
Participation in the 2023 CASE Workshop was sponsored by the UMass Amherst Graduate School, College of Engineering, and College of Natural Sciences. Since 2014, 20 graduate students have been selected through a competitive campus application process to represent UMass Amherst in the CASE workshop and subsequent meetings on the Hill. (May 2023)