AAAS S&T Policy Forum explores U.S. competitiveness, now and in the future

Arati Prabhakar of Stanford delivers lecture at AAAS Science & Technology Policy Forum. The U.S. scientific research and development enterprise stands at a critical juncture that requires the convergence of basic research and commercial applications to more quickly deliver benefits of nextgeneration technological innovation, said Arati Prabhakar in a lecture at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Forum on Science & Technology Policy. Prabhakar, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and former director of both the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, also called on the R&D community to leverage advances in the social sciences to meet challenges of the coming decades. Change was a theme that ran through the 43rd annual S&T Policy Forum on 21–22 June at AAAS headquarters in Washington, D.C., focused on U.S. science, innovation, and competitiveness. The forum featured speakers whose careers span public service, academia, and the private sector, including Susan Hockfield, president emerita of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and chair of the AAAS board, and Peter Lee, corporate vice president of artificial intelligence and research at Microsoft.