Who Represents Me?

Obama's science advisory council  list was recently published.  I posted it on the SLU blog if anyone wishes to see the full list.

A couple of points relevant to the UW may be worth noting.

First, the list includes a number of VC and technology types, suggesting that Obama sees science as important to economic growth.  The people that caught my eye were

--Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer at Microsoft Corp

--Ed Penhoet, a director of Alta Partners, and chairman of the Board for Immune Design and Metabolex
--Maxine Savitz, retired general manager of Technology Partnerships at Honeywell, Inc

--Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Google Inc. and (former) member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc.

--David E. Shaw, chief scientist of D. E. Shaw Research and founder of D. E. Shaw & Co., an investment and technology development firm
--Richard Levin, president of Yale University

These are all very different from past corporate appointments of business administrative or financial types who, I suspect, have a poor understanding of the synergy
 between humanities and the communicative and creative processes involved in in science.  Two of the three co-chairs of the Council, Harold Varmus and Eric Lander,
 both began their careers outside science and have both made strong statements about the need for humanities and social science education in the education of scientists.

Second, except for Craig Mundie, Seattle and the UW are not directly represented on the Council .  While this Council is not a fit place for geographic affirmative action,
is it worth wondering if the lack of UW faculty in this panel reflects the dearth of representation of scientists in high level administrative roles at the UW? 

I am curious about who amongst our colleagues here does have the national status to serve on the Council? Within our own institution,
what leadership role do scientists take?  Going further,  the same question, I would guess, may apply to the humanities and social sciences. 

Are the academics of the UW becoming employees of career administrators?   Who sets policy here?  What academic "face" represents the  UW to the loacl business community or in Olympia?

--
Stephen M. Schwartz
Pathology