ryan meyer

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2009 Fulbright Postgraduate Scholar

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“Overcoming our biggest challenges as a society is not simply a matter of advancing the science that informs them. We must work across both the social and scientific worlds to address problems such as climate change.”

Ryan Meyer, currently a PhD candidate at the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes (CSPO) at Arizona State University, has been awarded a Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship from the Australian-American Fulbright Commission to undertake 10 months research in collaboration with scholars at CSIRO, and the University of Melbourne.

CSPO’s purpose is to influence science policies so that they are better aligned with and better able to meet social needs. Ryan will use his Fulbright to extend this work in the area of climate change.

Ryan’s research will examine how government investments in climate science are linked to broader social needs. In particular, he will focus on CSIRO, which supports a group of researchers focused on matching the results of climate science investments with the specific needs of stakeholder groups impacted by climate variability and change.

“Organisations that fund and manage science are operating in the midst of complex political processes involving government, scientists, nongovernmental organisations, the media, and the general public. Many forces are influencing decisions about what science gets done.”

“The goals of the CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship and of CSPO are similar in many ways. But there are substantial differences in the approaches – CSPO coming out of the intellectual tradition of science and technology policy and CSIRO learning by doing. My studying with this group is a tremendous opportunity for mutual learning that could improve both research and practice.”

“Effective adaptation depends on transformative approaches to climate science that embrace participatory governance processes and empower local action to build adaptive capacity.”

Ryan has a BA in biology and music from Bowdoin college. He has also worked with Jeffrey Sachs at the Earth Institute and spent time in a rural village in Kenya. While at the CSPO he has written a handbook for policy makers, organised an annual conference for graduate students in Washington D.C. and initiated a series of meetings to promote conversations about climate science issues across branches of government.

Ryan is one of 19 American Fulbright Scholars travelling to Australia in 2009/2010.