Program Administration & Contact Information

Director Edmund P. Russell with 2007 intern Suzanne Collier

Contact Information

The Policy Internship Program is administered by the Engineering and Society (E&S) Department within the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) at the University of Virginia. Questions? Please feel free to contact us.

Science and Technology Policy Internship Program
Department of Engineering and Society
University of Virginia School of Engineering & Applied Science
A225 Thornton Hall
351 McCormick Road
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4744
434 924-6118

Administration

Michael Rodemeyer, Executive Director (mrodemeyer@virginia.edu)
Edmund P. Russell, Director
James H. Turner, Jr., Washington Coordinator

Michael Rodemeyer, Executive Director

Michael Rodemeyer came to UVA in 2006 after a twenty-five year career in Washington, D.C. and became the Executive Director of the S&T Policy Internship Program in 2009. In Washington, Mr. Rodemeyer served for fifteen years on the staff of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Science, including nine years as the Chief Democratic Counsel, preceding Jim Turner in that position. Mr. Rodemeyer also served as the Assistant Director for Environment in the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House during the Clinton Administration. Before moving to Charlottesville, Mr. Rodemeyer directed the Pew initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a non-profit research and education project on biotechnology and food funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. He has lectured and written on topics of science and technology policy, particularly the regulation of emerging technologies. Mr. Rodemeyer graduated with honors from Harvard Law School in 1975 and received his undergraduate degree in sociology with honors from Princeton University in 1972.

Edmund P. Russell, Director

Edmund Russell is a historian of science, technology, and the environment. His interest in the intersection of policy and technology began when, as a volunteer in the rural Philippines, he worked with village groups to develop technologies suited to local resources and finances. In a ten-year project begun in graduate school, Dr. Russell analyzed government science and technology policy on chemical weapons and pest control. That project culminated in a book titled War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring (Cambridge University Press, 2001). More recently, Dr. Russell published Evolutionary History: Studies in Environment and History (Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Dr. Russell held an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellowship at the United States Environmental Protection Agency, for which he wrote a history of "ecological protection" (regulating to protect non-human species) at the agency. The agency used his report to help train state and local leaders across the country. Dr. Russell served as Executive Director of the Policy Internship Program from 2004-2009, and he continues his service as Director. Dr. Russell is a professor in the Department of Engineering and Society and in the Department of History at the University of Virginia.

Jim Turner, Washington Coordinator

James Turner is the Counsel and Director of Energy Programs at the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities and the former chief counsel to the United States House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology. Mr. Turner studied mathematics at Westminster College, social ethics at Yale Divinity School, and law at Georgetown University. He completed the Senior Managers in Government Program at Harvard , is on the board of the American National Standards Institute, and serves on several committess at the National Academies of Science and ASME.

Recognizing the need to link technical expertise with federal policy, he set up a lecture series of senior Washington officials for the Washington internship program for Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Later, Dean Richard Miksad expanded the program to include the University of Virginia. Mr. Turner advises the program, helps interns find placements, and organizes a summer speaker series. He serves as a trustee of the UVA School of Engineering and Applied Science and as chair of the Advisory Board of its Department of Science, Technology and Society. In 2010, to honor his ten years of service to the S&T Policy Internship program, UVA program alumni named the annual end-of-summer research symposium after him.

Mr. Turner has commented, "I was at age 20 in the same position as many of these students, as were many of the people they will meet over the summer. I was one of the top math and science students at my college, and most of my coursework was in these areas, but I felt the need to explore other directions. And I had a lot of opportunities to go in different directions when I graduated. I ended going in several of them before I landed a job that I have kept most of my career but which I did not know existed when I was 20. The MIT and SEAS interns and I spend the summers exploring together, and I think each and every one of our students who is willing to journey with us comes out with a much deeper understanding than ten weeks earlier both of Washington and of where he or she might fit into the work world."