The Honorable Ron Packard

2372 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20515-0548

Dear Representative Packard:

Much of the strength of the U.S. economy derives from scientific advances over the past 50 years. Federal investment in scientific research should be increasing, ensuring a better life for future Californians.

The science program of DOE plays a role in this economic development. I am a Professor of Materials Science at the California Institute of Technology, and have ongoing research support from DOE. Most of this money is used to pay for modest stipends for graduate students working on their Ph.D. degrees. Several of these students have gone on to develop metallization and etch procedures for integrated circuit fabrication at companies like Motorola, Applied Materials, and Texas Instruments. Without DOE science funding this would not have been possible in their cases.

I hope you will agree that the support of DOE science as a good investment in the future of California and the United States.

Yours truly,

c.c.: Dr. Neal Lane, OSTP

Dr. James Decker, Office of Science, DOE

Research Environments by Brent Fultz

To do science in the USA, it is necessary to believe that you are doing the most important research in your field. If not, why bother? After all, there are many problems in business or industry where your talents could be used, and your contributions to our economy and society would likely be greater. Federal funding for science in the USA reflects some of this reality, and the quality of funded proposals is probably higher now than ever before. Unfortunately, it now takes a large amount of time to attend to these funding issues, and this detracts from the productive activities of a scientist.

It is therefore important for scientists to work in an environment that is as hassle-free as possible. Actions should be required because they contribute to the research effort, not so they satisfy a bureaucratic regulation. For example, if I clean a vacuum component with ethanol, I will typically let the ethanol evaporate and throw away the Q-tip. This is now impossible in some laboratory environments owing to administrative regulations. In one real (but not identified here) national laboratory, ethanol is classified as a hazardous waste, and my used Q-tip must be specially bagged, labeled, and logged. A Hazardous Material Control Officer must be called for disposal of the bagged Q-tip. My records must be correct (i.e., I must have the correct date on the disposal bag). A man-hour is devoted to disposal of this Q-tip, time which I have used more productively to write this commentary to complain about it.

Working at Caltech is far more reasonable. We have a minimum of bureaucracy. Safety issues are handled by prioritizing the actual hazards of materials and practices, not just by declaring items on a list to be equally hazardous. The lack of administration at Caltech is possible only because Caltech is small. Like most faculty here, I can quickly assess how my actions would affect other faculty and students. I then just go ahead and do what needs to be done. This style is typical of students at Caltech too.

In addition to the reduced bureaucracy, the small environment of Caltech encourages the faculty and students to treat each other with respect. One cornerstone of Caltech is an Honor System that uplifts inter-personal interactions. Simply stated, the Caltech honor code is, "No member of the Caltech community shall take unfair advantage of another member of the Caltech community." The honor system is is a central feature of Caltech's classroom teaching. For example, midterm and final examinations at Caltech are usually take-home exams. While take-home exams are not unusual in many universities, the faculty at Caltech can trust the students to follow the rules of the examination, even when these rules stipulate that the exam is closed book, and the student can work no longer than 3 hours on the exam. (You are expected to do the timing yourself.) This honor code is policed by the students themselves, and I think they do a pretty good job with it. The honor system applies to situations outside of the classroom too.

There is another simple reason why individuals are treated with respect at Caltech. If you have relatively few colleagues, and you expect to live with them for a number of years, you are inclined to think twice before offending anyone. Caltech simply does not have enough people to allow for shifting political alliances or opportunistic agendas. The agendas of Caltech faculty are usually straightforward. They seek to do the most significant work in their field of research.

The Honorable Barbara Boxer
112 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510

Dear Senator Barbara Boxer:

I believe that you as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee can have an important impact on the future of the economy of California. High technology is an important sector of our economy, and one with great future potential. As a working materials scientist and university professor at Caltech, I am concerned that the long-term investment in the science and engineering infrastructure of California and the U.S. has been neglected. For example, in my own field of metallic materials, over the past ten years much of the scientific leadership has passed to Japan and Europe. I expect that the effects of this shift will become evident in the advanced materials sector of the world economy in about a decade. I do not expect a catastrophe, but there will be areas of industrial leadership where California would not be so strong as it could have been.

The universities and national laboratories in California are the best in the U.S., and are quite capable of competing for federal research funds without earmarking or other forms of special assistance. The problem, of course, is that these funds have been thinning since about 1989, and the Clinton budget does little to improve this situation. I believe that the proposals by George Brown and Phil Gramm are more appropriate for the national interest. I urge you to consider seriously the proposal for a 7% increase in research budgets for DOE, NSF, NASA, and NIST.

I understand that any increase in spending, however small, goes counter to the important efforts to balance the federal budget. However, long-term iinvestments in science and technology infrastructure are just the sort of spending that will insure a better future for California and the U.S.

Sincerely,

Brent Fultz
Prof. of Materials Science