March for Science

EARTH DAY

April 22, 2017
Madison, Wisconsin

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ON APRIL 22, 2017, WE WALK OUT OF THE LAB AND INTO THE STREETS.

The Madison March for Science will begin at 1pm at James Madison Park and move towards UW Library Mall. Informational booths will be set up along Library Mall and State Street Mall around 2pm, and speakers will begin around 2:30pm, once all participants have completed the route.

Keynote speakers for the March for Science Madison include:

Tia Nelson

Managing Director, Climate
Outrider Foundation
Tia is internationally recognized for her work on climate change. She served 17 years with The Nature Conservancy, including serving as the first director of its global Climate Change Initiative. For her work, she received the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Protection Award in 2000. She then served 11 years as executive secretary of the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, Wisconsin’s oldest state agency, which included a gubernatorial appointment in 2007 as co‐chair of Wisconsin’s Task Force on Global Warming.

Mike McCabe

Founder
Blue Jean Nation
Blue Jean Nation founder and president Mike McCabe is the author of Blue Jeans in High Places: The Coming Makeover of American Politics and for 15 years was the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan watchdog group that specializes in tracking the money in state elections and works for reforms aimed at making people matter more than money in politics. During his time with the Democracy Campaign, Mike was a leading government whistle blower and earned a reputation as one of the nation’s best political money trackers. Under his leadership, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign was named the Citizen Openness Advocate of the Year in 2012 by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and the state chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2013, Community Shares of Wisconsin honored Mike with its Community Leadership Award, and in 2015 the Wisconsin Farmers Union gave him its “Friend of the Family Farmer” award. Mike is a Wisconsin native and was raised on his family’s dairy farm. He is a 1982 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism, which honored him in 2015 with its Distinguished Service Award

Paul Sondel

Reed and Carolee Walker Professor of Pediatrics, Human Oncology and Genetics
Director of Research
Division of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Dr. Sondel’s career has focused on basic, translational and clinical cancer immunotherapy since beginning lab-studies in 1969. He completed both undergraduate (1971) and Ph.D. degrees in Genetics (1975) at UW, with guidance from Bone Marrow Transplant pioneer, Fritz Bach, M.D. With additional lab training in cancer immunology at the Dana Farber Center, he received his M.D. magna cum laude in 1977 from Harvard Medical School. Following residencies at the Universities of Minnesota and Wisconsin, he joined the UW faculty in 1980, and served as Head of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant from 1990 – 2016, and has helped lead the cancer immunology research effort at the UW Carbone Cancer Center since 1990. His laboratory has pursued several strategies for enabling immune responses to impact on cancer, and some have moved into clinical testing in children through the Children’s Oncology Group (COG), and some in adults at the UW Carbone Cancer Center, with some demonstrating clear clinical benefit. He has held multiple national committee and leadership roles, including at The National Institutes of Health, The American Cancer Society, The Children’s Oncology Group, The National Cancer Institute, and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. He has been a scholar of the Leukemia Society of America and recently received a 7-year Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute. He has published more than 370 scientific articles and chapters, and has trained more than 60 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in his lab.

Bassam Z. Shakhashiri

Professor of Chemistry
First William T. Evjue Distinguished Chair for the Wisconsin Idea
Wisconsin Initiative for Science Literacy
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Prof. Shakhashiri has given over 1400 invited lectures and presentations around the world. He is the recipient of 7 honorary doctoral degrees and over 35 awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Madison Metropolitan School District, American Institute of Chemists, American Chemical Society, National Science Board, Council of Scientific Society Presidents and more. In 1977 Bassam was founding chair of the UW System Undergraduate Teaching Improvement Council, now called the Office of Professional and Instructional Development. In 1983 he founded the Institute for Chemical Education (ICE) and served as its first director. From 1984-90 he served as the National Science Foundation(NSF) Assistant Director for Science and Engineering Education. In 2002 he founded the Wisconsin Initiative for Science Literacy (WISL) and continues to serve as its director. He served as the 2012 President of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific organization. Bassam has been featured in newspapers, magazines, national and local radio and television, and appears as a regular guest on the Ideas Network of Wisconsin Public Radio.

Tyson Cook

Director of Science and Research
Clean Wisconsin
Tyson Cook manages the Science Department of Clean Wisconsin. In this role, he serves as the scientific and technical lead for analysis of environmental issues and policies, in order to inform advocacy and action advancing Clean Wisconsin’s environmental priorities. Mr. Cook also works to build the research base of Clean Wisconsin, expand the use of science in environmental decision-making throughout the state, and maintain Clean Wisconsin’s position as an expert resource for environmental science. Prior to joining Clean Wisconsin, Mr. Cook was an energy efficiency and renewable energy consultant. His work included first-in-the-nation field testing of emerging energy efficient technologies like LED lighting, and project management on the California Solar Initiative and CaliforniaSolarStatistics.org. Mr. Cook also served as a Resident Engineer for Engineers without Borders in Tanzania, and was a founding member of the Stanford Solar and Wind Energy Project. Mr. Cook holds a Master of Science degree in civil and environmental engineering from the Atmosphere/ Energy group at Stanford University. He has also studied environmental health science at the University of Michigan, and physics at Kalamazoo College. He has conducted research in fields including climate change, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and public health.

Kavin Senapathy

Author
Co-Founder
March against Myths
Kavin Senapathy is a communicator tackling myths on science, health, medicine, food, biotechnology, parenting, politics, and their intersection. She is the co-author of The Fear Babe: Shattering Vani Hari’s Glass House, a book discussing popular food and health misconceptions and why they proliferate. With a passion for refuting myths popular in the wild internet west, she is a regular contributor to Forbes and Grounded Parents, with work appearing in Slate, Gawker, and other outlets. Senapathy is a regular source for articles on food and pseudoscience and has been quoted or cited in outlets like The Atlantic, NPR, The Ringer, Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Magazine, Parenting Magazine, and more.

Pam King

Judge
3rd Judicial District of Minnesota
Pam King was appointed to the bench in the 3rd Judicial District of Minnesota, in October 2015 and elected in 2016. As a district court judge she presides in criminal, civil, family, juvenile and probate court matters. Prior to being appointed to the bench, Judge King worked full-time as a Trial Team attorney for the Minnesota Public Defender. Her career has focused on the nexus between the court system and forensic science and focused on litigation involving including forensic DNA, forensic pathology, and toxicology and drug chemistry. She participated in and then facilitated the Minnesota State Public Defender DNA Institute, working with a small group of lawyers to become proficient in forensic DNA litigation. She presents and teaches regularly in Minnesota and nationally on forensic science issues as well as litigation skills. Judge King served as a Commissioner on the National Commission on Forensic Sciences. She is a fellow in the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and a member in the Minnesota Association of District Court Judges.

Richard J. Davidson

William James and Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry
Founder of the Center for Healthy Minds
Director of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Prof. Davidson received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Psychology and has been at Wisconsin since 1984. He has published more than 375 articles, numerous chapters and reviews and edited 14 books. He is the author (with Sharon Begley) of The Emotional Life of Your Brain published by Penguin in 2012. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his research including the William James Fellow Award from the American Psychological Society. He was the year 2000 recipient of the most distinguished award for science given by the American Psychological Association - the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. He was the Founding Co-Editor of the new American Psychological Association journal EMOTION. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2006. In 2011, he was given the Paul D. MacLean Award for Outstanding Neuroscience Research in Psychosomatic Medicine. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences from 2011-2017 and member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Mental Health for 2014-2016. His research is broadly focused on the neural bases of emotion and emotional style and methods to promote human flourishing including meditation and related contemplative practices.

Laura L. Kiessling

Steenbock Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Prof. Kiessling is a scientist whose research spans chemistry and biology. Her investigations of the cell’s carbohydrate coat are identifying new strategies to treat infectious disease, control immune responses, and elucidate and control the microbiome. She received her B.S. in Chemistry from MIT and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Yale University. After postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology, she began her independent career in 1991 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She serves as the Director of the Keck Center for Chemical Genomics and the Chemistry-Biology Interface Training Program. She is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (genius award), a Guggenheim Fellowship, and she Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

Why We March

SCIENCE, NOT SILENCE

The March for Science is a celebration of our passion for science and a call to support and safeguard the scientific community. Recent policy changes have caused heightened worry among scientists, and the incredible and immediate outpouring of support has made clear that these concerns are also shared by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. The mischaracterization of science as a partisan issue, which has given policymakers permission to reject overwhelming evidence, is a critical and urgent matter. It is time for people who support scientific research and evidence-based policies to take a public stand and be counted.

We are scientists, science enthusiasts, and concerned citizens . We come from all races, all religions, all political perspectives, all professions, all gender identities, all sexual orientations, all abilities, all socioeconomic backgrounds, and all nationalities. Our diversity is our greatest strength: a wealth of opinions, perspectives, and ideas is critical for the scientific process. What unites us is a love of science, and an insatiable curiosity. We all recognize that science is everywhere and affects everyone.

Science is often an arduous process, but it is also thrilling. A universal human curiosity and dogged persistence is the greatest hope for the future. This movement cannot and will not end with a march. Our plans for policy change and community outreach will start with marches worldwide and a teach-in at the National Mall, but it is imperative that we continue to celebrate and defend science at all levels - from local schools to federal agencies - throughout the world.

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Mission and Principles

Mission Statement
Why we march

Principles
What we believe

Goals
What we hope to achieve

Partners
Those who stand with us

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