Washington Post Science Reporter Rick Weiss Joins CAP, Science Progress

Kicking off an auspicious week at Science Progress that will culminate in our first public event, the Center for American Progress just announced that former Post reporter Rick Weiss is joining CAP as a Senior Fellow. Weiss will develop projects in science and technology policy and will contribute to Science Progress. Readers are likely already familiar with his incisive work (his former colleague Ashley Halsey recently called him a “superb science writer“). An archive of his reporting lives on the Post website. Welcome, Rick.

The full press release:

For Immediate Release
June 9, 2008

Contact
John Neurohr, 202.481.8182
jneurohr@americanprogress.org

RELEASE: Rick Weiss Joins CAP as a Senior Fellow

Washington, D.C. – The Center for American Progress announced today that Rick Weiss, veteran Washington Post science reporter, has joined the Center as a Senior Fellow. Weiss will be initiating and contributing to a number of projects at the Center, and will be a regular contributor to Science Progress, the Center’s science magazine.

“My overarching goal is the reintroduction of evidence into the policy-making process,” Weiss said. “When it comes to designing political solutions to the energy and food crises, environmental health and other pressing problems, we are bound to fail if ideology continues to trump scientific reality.”

During his 15 years at The Post Weiss covered a wide range of topics relating to science, medicine, health and public policy, with a major focus on the ethical, legal, social, political and economic implications of research advances. He was the newspaper’s lead analyst on such hot-button issues as cloning and stem cells, agricultural biotechnology, and nanotechnology and led coverage of the civil liberties and consumer protection issues raised by the genomics revolution and personalized DNA testing.

“We could not be happier to welcome Rick Weiss as a Senior Fellow here at the Center for American Progress,” said President and CEO John Podesta. “Rick’s insight, expertise and understanding of the science community will be an incredible asset for all of us. We all look forward to working side by side with Rick on issues that, as of late, have not garnered the attention they deserve.”

Weiss contributed a chapter to “Wrestling with Behavioral Genetics – Science, Ethics and Public Conversation” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) and is the recipient of many awards, including the National Association of Science Writers’ Science and Society Award, the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Science Journalism Award, and the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting.

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