UMass ADVANCE’s Laurel Smith-Doerr Discusses Federal Support for Mass. Research and Innovation During Roundtable with Sen. Ed Markey and NSF Director

Laurel Smith-Doerr, professor of sociology and principal investigator of the UMass ADVANCE Program, recently joined a handful of other academics and researchers from Massachusetts, Sen. Ed Markey and National Science Foundation (NSF) Director Sethuraman Panchanathan in a roundtable discussion about federal support for research and innovation in the commonwealth.

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The lively discussion at Boston’s Museum of Science on Oct. 7 highlighted the critical work of Massachusetts colleges and universities and their role in driving tomorrow’s technologies and solutions as recipients of NSF grants. In Fiscal Year 2021, the Bay State was home to more than $565 million in grants from NSF, an $8.8 billion independent federal agency supporting scientific research and education.

Alongside Tim Ritchie, president of the Museum of Science, Markey and Panchanathan discussed with Smith-Doerr and her colleagues issues such as STEM education, diversity in recruitment, recovering from impacts of the pandemic, and ensuring continued robust funding for NSF and grant recipients. Each year in Congress, Markey leads the letter in the Senate for increased funding for the National Science Foundation, which includes $11 billion for the coming 2023 fiscal year.

“On this expert panel of six university leaders representing notable NSF-funded research projects in Massachusetts I was proud to represent public universities,” Smith-Doerr says. “As Sen. Markey noted to the director of NSF, Massachusetts is the No. 2 state in receiving NSF funds behind only California, which has a much larger population. We are ‘punching above our weight,’ as the Senator put it, and UMass as the flagship public university in the Commonwealth is punching above our weight in terms of holding our own with private universities.”

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“National Science Foundation support is the lifeblood that helps ensure Massachusetts remains a national and global leader in the solutions for the largest scientific and technological challenges we face,” Markey said at the event. “The funding NSF provides today is the key to unlocking the future cures, prevention models, and energy production technologies to prevent and reverse the impacts of the climate crisis. Ensuring our universities, laboratories and research institutes receive the NSF support that fosters breakthroughs will ensure diversity in the talent pipeline, create a more accessible society, and conquer the current and future pandemics. I thank Dr. Panchanathan for bringing his leadership and insights to Massachusetts and the Museum of Science, where the dreams of current and future students and researchers can become reality.”

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Panchanathan delivered remarks highlighting NSF’s support in awarding grants to Massachusetts innovators and academics who have made significant contributions in science and industry. He stressed the impact NSF has made in advancing scientific progress while ensuring accessibility and inclusivity in research and innovation.

In the panel discussion with Massachusetts college and university leaders, Markey and panelists also discussed equity issues related to recruitment of new talent into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields and the level at which NSF-supported programs engage the nation’s diverse talent in strengthening and scaling research that will drive tomorrow’s technologies and solutions.

Funded by the NSF and contributing to the foundation’s mission to advance women faculty – including women faculty of color – in science and engineering, UMass ADVANCE transforms the Amherst campus by cultivating faculty equity, inclusion and success by providing the resources, recognition and relationship building that are critical to equitable and successful collaboration. Since 2018, UMass ADVANCE has partnered with more than 100 faculty members from 54 departments across campus through its Faculty Fellowship to inform and promote equity programs and policies and has provided nearly two dozen teams of UMass Amherst researchers a total of $210,000 in research seed and mutual mentoring grants.

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“I was grateful for this invitation from NSF Director Panchanathan to speak about our UMass ADVANCE project for institutional transformation toward faculty equity in STEM,” Smith-Doerr says. “At the panel I mentioned to the director that I had been focused on my own basic social science research and had received NSF grants for that work, but that the NSF ADVANCE-Institutional Transformation grant really allowed me to put it into practice--to work with an amazing interdisciplinary ADVANCE team, and with leaders from our faculty union and administration, to take social science knowledge on equity and collaboration and put it into practice on our campus.”

Joining Smith-Doerr on the panel were Azer Bestavros, associate provost for computing and data sciences at Boston University, Anne Cohen, tenured scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Todd Keiller, director of the Office of Technology Commercialization at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Jason Kelly, co-founder and CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks and Karl W. Reid, senior vice provost and chief inclusion officer at Northeastern University.

Following the event, Smith-Doerr had high praise for Markey’s engagement with the group. “I've never been introduced by a United States Senator on a panel before and Sen. Markey did a very credible job in moderating a scientific panel,” Smith-Doerr says. “He may have been a professor in a previous life.”

The complete Oct. 7 discussion at the Museum of Science is available for online viewing via Sen. Markey’s Facebook page.