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<\/a>When policymakers decided to build this road, it\u2019s\nunclear whether they considered the consequences of this type of habitat\nfragmentation on the tiny ecosystems of bacteria that live inside of each\nbighorn sheep. More importantly, whether they knew their decision might lead to\nunforeseen consequences for bighorn population health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We take for granted how intertwined policy and science really are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Claire Couch is a 5th<\/sup> year PhD candidate in the department of\nIntegrative Biology, studying wildlife disease ecology, but she\u2019s also the\npresident of a new Science & Policy Club at Oregon State University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Advised by Anna Jolles in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Claire\nstudies the bacteria that live in the guts of large animals like African\nbuffalo, rocky mountain elk, and bighorn sheep. She\u2019s interested in how the gut\nmicrobiome can contribute to disease resistance, but separate from her PhD\nresearch, she\u2019s interested in how policy can be informed by science, and how\nscience can be impacted by policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Claire says she\u2019s always been interested in ecosystem health and fascinated by ecosystem dynamics between big scale (a region the sheep lives in) and small scale (the bacteria living in the gut) ecosystems. Through her research, she\u2019s been exposed to diverse conservation issues for different wildlife species. For example, management and policy shapes where wildlife can reside, and where they are determines the factors that shape the gut microbiome. It became apparent to Claire that most scientists are not typically trained to understand and partake in policy, including herself, even though is it\u2019s critical to all of our research pursuits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Claire started looking for ways to learn more and to become more engaged in science policy, but wasn\u2019t finding exactly what she was looking for. OSU has some science-policy courses and clubs, but they are typically very specific to one type of science. So although she didn\u2019t feel qualified to take the lead on this, she created what she was looking for: a science policy space that is more inclusive and general, with an emphasis on career development and general policy literacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the first year since this group started, they\u2019ve already packed in several activities including: \u00a0meetings with OSU faculty who are closely tied to policy, a seminar about how to communicate about controversial topics, a panel talk about how scientists can communicate with the press<\/a>, a talk from a government agency research organization scientist, and a meeting with House Rep. Peter DeFazio<\/a>. Finally, the group has an open-source data panel coming up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Claire wants to help scientists make their work relevant, but she hasn\u2019t\nbeen doing it all alone. There are currently a few other club officers, and as\nClaire writes her dissertation, she\u2019s looking to pass on club leadership. In\nthe future, she hopes to see the club become more engaged with the non-OSU\ncommunity members around us, host bigger events in collaboration with other groups\non campus, and start up a mentoring program in which club members would be\nmentored by policy professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2150\/files\/2020\/03\/claire-1024x917.jpg\")
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