A year in the legislature: Alum keeps CA lawm Sydney Chamberlin earned her PhD in physics from UWM in 2016. She was part of the team that helped identify gravitational waves, a discovery that rocked the astronomical world. Her expertise lies in black holes and pulsars. She had no idea what Quagga mussels were when she started working in the California legislature. “I remember going into the first week, someone told me they needed me to make a fact sheet about Quagga mussels. I was like, what’s a Quagga mussel? I’d never heard of that,” Chamberlin recalled with a laugh. She learned quickly. Chamberlin has spent the past year working in California’s state government as a fellow with the California Council on Science and Technology. CCST is a non-partisan nonprofit that was created in 1988 at the request of the state legislature. The organization advises lawmakers and provides expert opinions and analysis about certain scientific issues so legislators can make informed decisions about policy. “For example, this year they’ve had several expert briefings on wildfires,” Chamberlin said. Each year, CCST recruits 10 fellows, all with doctoral degrees in the sciences, to serve for a year in the legislature. Chamberlin and her cohort became committee consultants, each assigned to a different committee in the legislature where they both analyzed proposed legislation as well as penned their own bills for consideration. Chamberlin was assigned to the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water. The committee deals with matters concerning fish, wildlife, forest management, and water. With her PhD in astrophysics, Chamberlin was admittedly outside of her wheelhouse.
UWM physics alum Sydney Chamberlin crosses one of Senator Henry Stern’s bills on the Senate desk. Sh California Council on Science and Technology.
“When CCST places you in a role in the legislature, it’s not about your scientific training at all. It’s completely about personality fit and whether you fit into the culture of the office,” she said. “You’re not necessarily going to work on science that’s tied to your degree. I certainly knew that was going to be the case for me. Nobody legislates about gravitational waves or black holes right now.”
To prepare for their roles, Chamberlin and the other fellows underwent a month-long “policy boot camp” where they learned the finer points of California’s government, the current political climate, the role of legislative staffers, and other essential information. Then came the hard work. “My job was to do research on all of these proposed bills and try to decide if it’s a sound policy idea,” Chamberlin
12 • IN FOCUS • December 2019
