Students invited to enjoy a slice and discuss interaction of science policy and politics at Pizza & Politics event April 21

A study conducted by the Pew Research Center in October 2024 found that 76% of Americans express “a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests.” That’s the good news. The not-do-good news is that number is down from 86% in January 2019.

Also, the same study found that 48% of respondents feel scientists should “focus on establishing sound scientific facts and stay out of public policy debates.”

So, these are interesting times at the nexus of science policy and politics. This will be the theme of the Politics & Pizza discussion from 6:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 21, in HUMN 250.

The aim of the Politics & Pizza discussion series—which was initiated and will be moderated by Glen Krutz, a professor of political science—is to “encourage productive, substantive deliberation of specific topics, rather than rancorous and ideological macro-thoughts.”

Politics & Pizza, which includes free Cosmo’s pizza, is modeled on similar sessions offered in Harvard University’s Institute of Politics. Each session features expert speakers who give a few introductory thoughts about the session’s topic and then open the session to a question-and-answer with students.

In the sessions, which are designed to be highly interactive with the student audience, the panel of experts individually make initial comments on the session topic.

“However, the majority of the time is spent in questions and answers in a lively, interactive format that often induces nice interaction between the experts as well,” Krutz says. “The panelists can also ask questions of one another and feel free to banter as they wish.”

The expert panel for the Science Policy and Politics discussion will be Michael Detamore, alumnus of CU Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) and director of the Translational Medicine Institute and professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering at Colorado State University; Lori Hunter, director of the CU Boulder Institute of Behavioral Science and professor of sociology; Keith Molenaar, dean of the CU Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) and K. Stanton Lewis Professor of Construction Engineering and Management; and Massimo Ruzzene, CU Boulder senior vice chancellor for Research & Innovation (RIO), dean of the Institutes and Slade Professor of Engineering.

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