The US Congress established the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in 1976 with a broad mandate to advise the President and others within the Executive Office of the President on the effects of science and technology on domestic and international affairs.

OSTP with NIH is leading interagency efforts to develop and implement the BRAIN Initiative policies and budgets, and is working with the private sector, state and local governments, the science and higher education communities, and other nations toward this end.

Images from the OSTP Grand ChallengesUpper Left: NIH, DARPA, and NSF’s BRAIN Initiative;Upper Right: NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge;Lower Right: DOE’s SunShot Grand Challenge;Lower left: USAID’s Grand Challenges for Development, including Saving Lives at Birth.

Web Information

Website:   whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp YouTube Channel:  youtube.com/user/whitehouse Twitter:  @whitehouseostp  Wikipedia Entry: wiki/Office_of_Science_and_Technology_Policy

Contact Information

Email:  contact form Phone: 202-456-4444 Address: Eisenhower Executive Office Building 1650 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20504

Organization

Director:  John P. Holdren Assistant Director, Neuroscience, Mental Health, and Broadening Participation:  Monica Basco Staff Directory

The BRAIN Initiative

OSTP works to advance a wide range of initiatives, programs, projects, and activities that unleash the power of science, technology, and innovation for the benefit of Americans and ...

Associate Director for Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Co-Chair of the Interagency Working Group on Neuroscience

Dr. Handelsman helps to advise President Obama on the implications of science for the Nation, ways in which science can inform U.S. policy, and on Federal efforts in support of scientific research. Prior to joining OSTP, Dr. Handelsman was an HHMI Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University.

Web Information

OSTP web page: https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/

Yale Department web page: http://bbs.yale.edu/molecularcell/people/jo_handelsman.profile

Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Handelsman

Contact Information

Email:

Phone:

Address: Eisenhower Executive Office Building 1650 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20504

Biosketch

Dr. Jo Handelsman was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor and Frederick Phineas Rose Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984 and she served on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1985 until moving to Yale in 2010. Her research focuses on the genetic and functional diversity of microorganisms in soil, plant and insect gut communities. Handelsman’s lab is one of the pioneers of functional metagenomics, an approach to accessing the genetic potential of unculturable bacteria in environmental samples. Their studies using both culture-based and metagenomic analyses have ...

Deputy Director for Policy for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Senior Advisor for Science, Technology and Innovation for the National Economic Council

Tom Kalil has been the OSTP Director spearheading the convening of the BRAIN Initiative.  Tom supervises a team of 14 policy entrepreneurs working science, technology and innovation policy issues such as the President’s Strategy for American Innovation, Grand Challenges, incentive prizes, STEM education, the Maker Movement, high-growth entrepreneurship, lab-to-market, space policy, innovation for global development, R&D funding, insights from the social and behavioral science, and national S&T initiatives in areas such as advanced manufacturing, Big Data, cyber-physical systems, nanotechnology, robotics, software-defined networks, synthetic biology.

Web Information

OSTP Webpage: whitehouse.gov/blog/author/Thomas%20Kalil

LinkedIn webpage: linkedin.com/profile/

Wikipedia Entry: wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kalil

Contact Information

Email: tkalil@ostp.eop.gov

Address: New Executive Office Building 725 – 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20502

Biography

From OSTP page

From 2001 to 2008, Kalil was Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Science and Technology at UC Berkeley. He was responsible for developing major new multi-disciplinary research and education initiatives at the intersection of information technology, nanotechnology, microsystems, and biology. He also conceived and launched a program called “Big Ideas @ Berkeley,” which provides support for multidisciplinary teams of Berkeley students that are interested ...

Assistant Director for Biological Innovation at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy PhD, Biological Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dr. Barbero is a biological engineer trained at MIT and Dartmouth College. Between undergraduate and graduate school he spent five years working for three biotechnology companies – two in CA and one in NH – in manufacturing, engineering, and sales-oriented roles.

Web Information

OSTP webpage:

LinkedIn page: linkedin.com/pub/robbie-barbero/1/8a3/6b1

Siebel Scholars page: siebelscholars.com/scholars/798

Contact Information

Email: Roberto_J_Barbero@ostp.eop.gov

Phone: 202-456-6032

Address: New Executive Office Building 725 – 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20502

Biography

Robbie Barbero is a biological engineer trained at MIT and Dartmouth College. Between undergraduate and graduate school he spent five years working for three biotechnology companies – two in CA and one in NH – in manufacturing, engineering, and sales-oriented roles. While in graduate school, he co-founded a clean energy company, Thermeleon, that is developing a durable and cost-effective color-changing roofing material that can reflect heat on hot days and absorb it on cool days.

For his Ph.D., he worked for Angela Belcher in the biomolecular materials research group at MIT on a variety of nanotechnology and biological engineering projects with applications in energy and ...

Assistant Director for Neuroscience, Mental Health, and Broadening Participation at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Dr. Basco is an internationally recognized expert in cognitive-behavioral therapy, a clinical psychologist, and a founding fellow of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. She is on the Psychology faculty at the University of Texas at Arlington, with a secondary appointment in Psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Her books include bestsellers Never Good Enough and The Bipolar Workbook.

Web Information

Website: monicabasco.com/about.php

Contact Information

Email: mbasco@ostp.eop.gov

Phone: 202-456-4444

Address: New Executive Office Building 725 – 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20502

Biosketch

Clinical Psychologist

Assistant Professor of Psychology University of Texas at Arlington

Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas

Founding Fellow of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy

Videos

The Procrastinator’s Guide to Getting Things Done

Published on July 7, 2015 by Guilford Press

Everyone procrastinates sometimes—often at a significant price, from poor job performance to stress, financial problems, and relationship conflicts. Cognitive-behavioral therapy expert Monica Ramirez Basco’s new book provides easy-to-relate-to examples from “recovering procrastinators”—including herself. Inviting quizzes, exercises, and practical suggestions help you: * Understand why you procrastinate. * Start ...

On the day that President Obama launched the BRAIN Initiative, April 2, 2013, the White House recorded an “open for questions” event that responded to Twitter questions.

Tom Kalil, Deputy Director for Technology and Innovation in the Office of Science and Technology Policy; Dr. Francis Collins, Director of National Institutes of Health; and Dr. Arati Prabhakar, Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency answer questions about the BRAIN Initiative.

Published on YouTube by the White House on Apr 2, 2013

For a fun and informative video of Francis Collins and the BRAIN Initiative, check out this video from the Colbert Report.