BIPP to host mock Senate committee hearing Feb. 28

BIPP to host mock Senate committee hearing Feb. 28

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff

Rice’s Robert Stein and Neal Lane will become U.S. senators Feb. 28 — but it’s just for educational purposes.

The Baker Institute Student Forum (BISF) and the Science and Technology Policy Program at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy are hosting a mock U.S. Senate committee hearing at 4 p.m. in Doré Commons in James A. Baker III Hall.

“The main goal of this event is to expose Rice students to the process and theater involved in a congressional hearing,” said Jessie Gill, a Baker College sophomore and BISF member.

During the hearing, members of the mock Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation will investigate the medical use of nanoscale science and technology.

Stein, dean of social sciences and the Lena Gohlman Fox Professor of Political Science, will serve as a senator, along with Lane, University Professor, senior fellow in science and technology at the Baker Institute and professor of physics and astronomy. They will be joined by “senators” George Abbey, the Baker Botts Senior Fellow in Space Policy at the Baker Institute; Joe Barnes, the Bonner Means Baker Research Fellow at the Baker Institute; and former Congressman Chris Bell.

Serving as witnesses during the hearing will be Steven Currall, the William and Stephanie Sick Professor of Entrepreneurship and associate professor of management, psychology and statistics at Rice; William Brinkley, senior vice president for graduate sciences, distinguished service professor of molecular and cellular biology and dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine; and Ward Casscells, the John Edward Tyson Distinguished Professor of Medicine and professor of cardiology at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston and vice president of biotechnology at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

“Students will be selected to serve as staffers to help the ‘senators’ prepare for the event and assist them during the hearing,” Gill said.

Rice students, faculty and staff are welcome to watch.